[Books] Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire
Yes, yes, I know, I am late to the party. I am chronically late to the party.
Rosemary and Rue is the first in Seanan McGuire's (seanan_mcguire) October Daye series. It's an urban fantasy set in San Francisco and its myriad hidden duchys of the faerie.
October is a changeling: a half-fae, half-human woman, sitting on the edges of both worlds. When she's burned by both sides of her heritage, she tries to retreat from faerie and mortals alike, barely living, but making it. Rosemary and Rue is, for the most part, about what happens when she's forcibly dragged back into the business of the fae.
In the end, I'm a little conflicted, but generally my response is positive.
I really enjoy the world-building here. It's pretty incredible, the way McGuire has woven the world of faerie into the world of San Francisco, and populated them both with the various races of the fae. A lot of books just kind of go "there's the fae, they're the fae, it's faerie, you don't need details" and kind of lump all the fae into one big "faerie" group. McGuire actually splits them up by race and boudaries, which of the fae are descended from Maeve and which from Titania, and Undine and Cait Sidhe, and look, I've never been great at spelling Gaelic words, but there are lots more. Different tribes of fae have different strengths and weaknesses, and there are alliances underneath them all, I'm sure, that McGuire didn't have a chance to go into in this first book, but that we'll find out later.
I like the politics, I like the way McGuire sets up how changelings are treated by purebloods, and how changelings must make their Choice, and it's really sort of gruesome and horrible, isn't it? Yay for faerie?
I like October. She reminds me a little of a female Harry Dresden, only less witty. Don't get me wrong, October, or Toby, is plenty witty, but no one can match Dresden. That's just not going to happen. Reading a Dresden Files novel is like watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, only, you know, without Buffy and in words. Toby has her own dry sort of sarcastic wit, and it's enjoyable.
She's also a private detective by trade, as one of her talents is finding things she needs to find. It's not really clarified whether this is a specific gift of her fae heritage, or if it's simply a talent, something she can do by using her fae gifts. Either way, things kind of go belly up for her very early on, but that's something I'm not going to spoil. Let's just say that Toby is tough, and I like and respect that about her. I also like that she isn't--at least in the beginning--a loner, and I like very much that she has a family at home waiting for her.
Toby also reminds me of Harry Dresden in that she gets the crap beat out of her in this book. A LOT. Like, a lot a lot.
Which leads me to one of the things that began to frustrate me. You see, Dresden gets the crap out of him, but he keeps going and manages to get shit done, right? Toby, on the other hand, spends something like 15% of the book unconscious, which is fine, really, but it gets annoying after a while, especially because, well... she doesn't do much of anything to get to the bottom of the mystery.
This is the basic layout of the plot: Murder happens, Toby gets involved, Toby finds a piece of evidence, Toby gets shot, Toby heals, Toby gets shot again, Toby goes looking for answers, Toby gets waylaid by someone waiting to kill her (again) before she can find even a shred of answers, Toby goes to a place specifically for the purpose of getting answers, runs into a potential love interest there, does nothing to find answers because she's talking to potential love interest, and gets chased out of the place before she can find anything, is injured again of course, finally decides she needs to backtrack to something else that happened earlier to do some magic she could have done earlier if things weren't conveniently going wrong for her all the time, and that piece of magic is all it takes for her to figure out the identity of the murderer. Toby gets beat up again.
I found myself thinking, every time Toby got shot or suffered some other convenient injury to keep her from getting any further, "Holy shit, really, I mean, we know nothing, isn't it about time we knew something?" What I mean is, when Dresden gets injured, it's out of realism, but it doesn't stop the plot from moving forward. When Toby gets injured, it is realistic, I guess, but it's also obviously specifically to stop the plot from moving forward before McGuire wants it to... it's to stop Toby from finding something, so as to stop the reader from getting any information.
And literally, one piece of magic, one tasting of blood memories, was all it took to show Toby who was behind the murder. I mean, it kind of reminds me of what I'm doing in my NaNo novel right now... "Can't have that happen yet! THROW IN NINJAS TO DISTRACT THE PROTAG."
:/
Basically, what I'm saying is, this book suffered from an obvious case of Writer on Board.
It also suffers, just a little, from a case of Holy Crap How Many Love Interests? McGuire took care of some of that right here in this book, which is good, but I also really couldn't care less who she ends up with when this series is done, whenever that is going to be. But I suppose you can't have a book without having a romance, and you can't have an urban fantasy series with a female protag without having her try out all the available guys to see which one she likes best. (Which, btw, is not a statement on Toby's or any female protag's sexual habits so much as it is an observation on what publishers and maybe some authors--maybe McGuire, maybe not--seem to think UF needs in order to sell.)
But then again, you guys know me, and you know my opinion of romance in books. So, I am completely willing to say this is just my opinion and let you guys enjoy your tug-of-war romance.
For me, I'm really more interested in the faerie knowes, the politics, if there are any non-fae type magical creatures in this world, how Toby's going to pay back the people who did what they did to her at the beginning, what the hell happened to Luna and Raycel, if Toby's ever going to reconcile with her daughter, and about ten million other things besides the romance. I'm also interested to know if the "hey, Toby can't find that out yet, let's have her get shot" is just a symptom of this book (I hope so) or if it continues in the rest of the series (please no).
If McGuire has cleaned up her plot structure, I have no doubts I can and will enjoy the later books in this series. I plan to get A Local Habitation as soon as I get somewhere my Kindle's wifi will work.
Conclusion: A mixed first book in the series, that I think suffers from some weaknesses in plot, but might make up for it in world-building and characterization, especially if the rest of the series grows stronger plotwise.
Rosemary and Rue is the first in Seanan McGuire's (seanan_mcguire) October Daye series. It's an urban fantasy set in San Francisco and its myriad hidden duchys of the faerie.
October is a changeling: a half-fae, half-human woman, sitting on the edges of both worlds. When she's burned by both sides of her heritage, she tries to retreat from faerie and mortals alike, barely living, but making it. Rosemary and Rue is, for the most part, about what happens when she's forcibly dragged back into the business of the fae.
In the end, I'm a little conflicted, but generally my response is positive.
I really enjoy the world-building here. It's pretty incredible, the way McGuire has woven the world of faerie into the world of San Francisco, and populated them both with the various races of the fae. A lot of books just kind of go "there's the fae, they're the fae, it's faerie, you don't need details" and kind of lump all the fae into one big "faerie" group. McGuire actually splits them up by race and boudaries, which of the fae are descended from Maeve and which from Titania, and Undine and Cait Sidhe, and look, I've never been great at spelling Gaelic words, but there are lots more. Different tribes of fae have different strengths and weaknesses, and there are alliances underneath them all, I'm sure, that McGuire didn't have a chance to go into in this first book, but that we'll find out later.
I like the politics, I like the way McGuire sets up how changelings are treated by purebloods, and how changelings must make their Choice, and it's really sort of gruesome and horrible, isn't it? Yay for faerie?
I like October. She reminds me a little of a female Harry Dresden, only less witty. Don't get me wrong, October, or Toby, is plenty witty, but no one can match Dresden. That's just not going to happen. Reading a Dresden Files novel is like watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, only, you know, without Buffy and in words. Toby has her own dry sort of sarcastic wit, and it's enjoyable.
She's also a private detective by trade, as one of her talents is finding things she needs to find. It's not really clarified whether this is a specific gift of her fae heritage, or if it's simply a talent, something she can do by using her fae gifts. Either way, things kind of go belly up for her very early on, but that's something I'm not going to spoil. Let's just say that Toby is tough, and I like and respect that about her. I also like that she isn't--at least in the beginning--a loner, and I like very much that she has a family at home waiting for her.
Toby also reminds me of Harry Dresden in that she gets the crap beat out of her in this book. A LOT. Like, a lot a lot.
Which leads me to one of the things that began to frustrate me. You see, Dresden gets the crap out of him, but he keeps going and manages to get shit done, right? Toby, on the other hand, spends something like 15% of the book unconscious, which is fine, really, but it gets annoying after a while, especially because, well... she doesn't do much of anything to get to the bottom of the mystery.
This is the basic layout of the plot: Murder happens, Toby gets involved, Toby finds a piece of evidence, Toby gets shot, Toby heals, Toby gets shot again, Toby goes looking for answers, Toby gets waylaid by someone waiting to kill her (again) before she can find even a shred of answers, Toby goes to a place specifically for the purpose of getting answers, runs into a potential love interest there, does nothing to find answers because she's talking to potential love interest, and gets chased out of the place before she can find anything, is injured again of course, finally decides she needs to backtrack to something else that happened earlier to do some magic she could have done earlier if things weren't conveniently going wrong for her all the time, and that piece of magic is all it takes for her to figure out the identity of the murderer. Toby gets beat up again.
I found myself thinking, every time Toby got shot or suffered some other convenient injury to keep her from getting any further, "Holy shit, really, I mean, we know nothing, isn't it about time we knew something?" What I mean is, when Dresden gets injured, it's out of realism, but it doesn't stop the plot from moving forward. When Toby gets injured, it is realistic, I guess, but it's also obviously specifically to stop the plot from moving forward before McGuire wants it to... it's to stop Toby from finding something, so as to stop the reader from getting any information.
And literally, one piece of magic, one tasting of blood memories, was all it took to show Toby who was behind the murder. I mean, it kind of reminds me of what I'm doing in my NaNo novel right now... "Can't have that happen yet! THROW IN NINJAS TO DISTRACT THE PROTAG."
:/
Basically, what I'm saying is, this book suffered from an obvious case of Writer on Board.
It also suffers, just a little, from a case of Holy Crap How Many Love Interests? McGuire took care of some of that right here in this book, which is good, but I also really couldn't care less who she ends up with when this series is done, whenever that is going to be. But I suppose you can't have a book without having a romance, and you can't have an urban fantasy series with a female protag without having her try out all the available guys to see which one she likes best. (Which, btw, is not a statement on Toby's or any female protag's sexual habits so much as it is an observation on what publishers and maybe some authors--maybe McGuire, maybe not--seem to think UF needs in order to sell.)
But then again, you guys know me, and you know my opinion of romance in books. So, I am completely willing to say this is just my opinion and let you guys enjoy your tug-of-war romance.
For me, I'm really more interested in the faerie knowes, the politics, if there are any non-fae type magical creatures in this world, how Toby's going to pay back the people who did what they did to her at the beginning, what the hell happened to Luna and Raycel, if Toby's ever going to reconcile with her daughter, and about ten million other things besides the romance. I'm also interested to know if the "hey, Toby can't find that out yet, let's have her get shot" is just a symptom of this book (I hope so) or if it continues in the rest of the series (please no).
If McGuire has cleaned up her plot structure, I have no doubts I can and will enjoy the later books in this series. I plan to get A Local Habitation as soon as I get somewhere my Kindle's wifi will work.
Conclusion: A mixed first book in the series, that I think suffers from some weaknesses in plot, but might make up for it in world-building and characterization, especially if the rest of the series grows stronger plotwise.