Book Review: The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home, by Catherynne Valente
September's adventures in Fairyland come to an end... or do they?
Feiwel and Friends, 2016, 308 pages
This final book in the New York Times-bestselling Fairyland series finds September accidentally crowned the Queen of Fairyland. But there are others who believe they have a fair and good claim on the throne, so there is a Royal Race--whoever wins will seize the crown.
Along the way, beloved characters including the Wyverary, A-Through-L, the boy Saturday, the changelings Hawthorn and Tamburlaine, the wombat Blunderbuss, and the gramophone Scratch are caught up in the madness. And September's parents have crossed the universe to find their daughter.
Who will win? What will become of September, Saturday, and A-Through-L? The answers will surprise you, and are as bewitching and bedazzling as fans of this series by Catherynne M. Valente have come to expect.oo
One of my most adored books, ever, is The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. Thus began the story of September, a little girl from Omaha, who was whisked away to Fairyland by a Green Wind and the Leopard of Little Breezes, and had Adventures.
Catherynne Valente writes beautiful clever prose which is sometimes a treat and sometimes just a little too much, when you feel her cleverness oozing over the page. But in the Fairyland books, children's books which, like all fairy tales, have a dark and adult undertone, it is wondrous, and September and her friends captured my heart. A-through-L the Wyverary and Saturday the Marid, and villains like the Marquess, are characters to remember forever.
“Shut up," hissed the Marquess. "I chose it, you miserable, rouged-up idiots! Why shouldn't I have a boy's title? People listen to boys! They fear boys-they fear a King and hope a Queen will show them mercy! Why shouldn't I be a Marquess? I rule the world! I say how things are pronounced! I say what belongs to boys and what doesn't!”
Over the course of five books, September has gone back and forth to Fairyland, getting a little older and causing a little more chaos each time. We've watching a growing cast of characters form relationships, and explored the history and geography of Fairyland, and breathed in Cathrynne Valente's beautiful prose. I found the trip wonderful but sometimes uneven; the first book was magic, the second was still magic but not quite as much so, the third book was a wobbly, nonlinear piece of pretty prose that couldn't quite find its plot, and the fourth book was... okay, but barely featured September at all. I still treasure these books, but maybe it was the slightly let-down feeling of the last couple of books that were the reason it took me so long to get to the final book in the series.
And that is the last lesson of childhood: You spend all your years fighting against the injustice of big folk and their big rules until you are ready to rule yourself.
The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home is the fifth and last Fairyland book (at least, for now). In it, September is now all of seventeen, still our little girl but also turning into a young woman with grown-up problems. In Fairyland, that means she has been appointed Queen of Fairyland. This is a much rawer deal than you might think, as it involves, among other things, having to have for breakfast every morning the milk of a dun cow, a snifter of liegelime cordial, and a shortstack of magnamillet flapjacks, or the Greatvole of Black Salt Cavern will wake from her thousand-year slumber.
Also, every previous King or Queen of Fairyland has been resurrected and in three days there's going to be a Cantankerous Derby in which they'll all compete for the crown and try to kill September.
Jacquard chuckled. She produced a measuring tape from her metal arm the way a lady might produce a handkerchief from her sleeve. "Young miss, if you didn't want to be Queen, perhaps you shouldn't have kept whacking every monarch you met with quite such a large and pointy stick. The trouble with upsetting the applecart is that you've got to clean up the fruit when you're done."
So September has to defend her crown, in order to stay in Fairyland, so she can stay with Saturday, and all her other friends. She will race in the Cantankerous Derby with A-through-L, Saturday, and our friends from previous books, Arastook the Model A, Blunderbuss the yarn wombat, Hawthorn the Troll, and many others. Their perils will include Book Bears, an artillery of octopuses, and deadly duels with Latin conjugations, state capitals, and cursing.
"I'm going to hang your bones from my mainsail, you ladle-brained peasant! You've got the brain of a sunburned badger, the courage of a bowl of porridge, and the grace of a giant with a head injury! You prancing, marshmallow-hearted cow!" Curry'd run out of breath by the end of it, but he yanked out that last with a hoarse belch.
"That's the second time I've been called a cow today," September sighed. "I don't know what's so horrid about being a cow. Mrs. Powell's cow is called Marjorie and she's well behaved and very useful. But I suppose I did jump over the Moon."
This book brings the entire cast back together. The rogue's gallery includes every previous horrible Fairyland ruler, including Charlie Crunchcrab, Pinecrack, the Moose Khan, Hushnow, the Ancient and Demented Raven Lord, the First Stone, the Rex Tyrannosaur, Madame Tanaquill, and September's old nemesis, the Marquess.
The tyrannosaurus looked a little shamefaced - but only a little, for dinosaurs would rather drown in tar than admit they're wrong. That unfortunate attitude played a key role in their extinction.
It's funny, heartfelt, occasionally scary and serious, and the ending was a little tidy with magic pulled out of a convenient fairy tale, but it still brought September's story to a close in a satisfying way. The last book did not suffer the meanderingness of the previous ones; it was the charm of the first book brought back for September's last great hurrah. Fairyland remains, and what of her friends? You must read and find out.
“You gotta be nice to strangers even when they are the worst, because they don't know you well enough to understand how shut your big face can mean I've missed you more than the whole world can know.”
This is a series to read to your children, or read it for yourself if you still have a child inside you.
Be nice to Fairyland. She is old and tender of heart and when her feelings are hurt, she cries volcanoes.
Also by Catherynne Valente: My reviews of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two, The Boy Who Lost Fairyland, The Habitation of the Blessed, Silently and Very Fast, Deathless, Six-Gun Snow White, and Space Opera.
My complete list of book reviews.
Feiwel and Friends, 2016, 308 pages
This final book in the New York Times-bestselling Fairyland series finds September accidentally crowned the Queen of Fairyland. But there are others who believe they have a fair and good claim on the throne, so there is a Royal Race--whoever wins will seize the crown.
Along the way, beloved characters including the Wyverary, A-Through-L, the boy Saturday, the changelings Hawthorn and Tamburlaine, the wombat Blunderbuss, and the gramophone Scratch are caught up in the madness. And September's parents have crossed the universe to find their daughter.
Who will win? What will become of September, Saturday, and A-Through-L? The answers will surprise you, and are as bewitching and bedazzling as fans of this series by Catherynne M. Valente have come to expect.oo
One of my most adored books, ever, is The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. Thus began the story of September, a little girl from Omaha, who was whisked away to Fairyland by a Green Wind and the Leopard of Little Breezes, and had Adventures.
Catherynne Valente writes beautiful clever prose which is sometimes a treat and sometimes just a little too much, when you feel her cleverness oozing over the page. But in the Fairyland books, children's books which, like all fairy tales, have a dark and adult undertone, it is wondrous, and September and her friends captured my heart. A-through-L the Wyverary and Saturday the Marid, and villains like the Marquess, are characters to remember forever.
“Shut up," hissed the Marquess. "I chose it, you miserable, rouged-up idiots! Why shouldn't I have a boy's title? People listen to boys! They fear boys-they fear a King and hope a Queen will show them mercy! Why shouldn't I be a Marquess? I rule the world! I say how things are pronounced! I say what belongs to boys and what doesn't!”
Over the course of five books, September has gone back and forth to Fairyland, getting a little older and causing a little more chaos each time. We've watching a growing cast of characters form relationships, and explored the history and geography of Fairyland, and breathed in Cathrynne Valente's beautiful prose. I found the trip wonderful but sometimes uneven; the first book was magic, the second was still magic but not quite as much so, the third book was a wobbly, nonlinear piece of pretty prose that couldn't quite find its plot, and the fourth book was... okay, but barely featured September at all. I still treasure these books, but maybe it was the slightly let-down feeling of the last couple of books that were the reason it took me so long to get to the final book in the series.
And that is the last lesson of childhood: You spend all your years fighting against the injustice of big folk and their big rules until you are ready to rule yourself.
The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home is the fifth and last Fairyland book (at least, for now). In it, September is now all of seventeen, still our little girl but also turning into a young woman with grown-up problems. In Fairyland, that means she has been appointed Queen of Fairyland. This is a much rawer deal than you might think, as it involves, among other things, having to have for breakfast every morning the milk of a dun cow, a snifter of liegelime cordial, and a shortstack of magnamillet flapjacks, or the Greatvole of Black Salt Cavern will wake from her thousand-year slumber.
Also, every previous King or Queen of Fairyland has been resurrected and in three days there's going to be a Cantankerous Derby in which they'll all compete for the crown and try to kill September.
Jacquard chuckled. She produced a measuring tape from her metal arm the way a lady might produce a handkerchief from her sleeve. "Young miss, if you didn't want to be Queen, perhaps you shouldn't have kept whacking every monarch you met with quite such a large and pointy stick. The trouble with upsetting the applecart is that you've got to clean up the fruit when you're done."
So September has to defend her crown, in order to stay in Fairyland, so she can stay with Saturday, and all her other friends. She will race in the Cantankerous Derby with A-through-L, Saturday, and our friends from previous books, Arastook the Model A, Blunderbuss the yarn wombat, Hawthorn the Troll, and many others. Their perils will include Book Bears, an artillery of octopuses, and deadly duels with Latin conjugations, state capitals, and cursing.
"I'm going to hang your bones from my mainsail, you ladle-brained peasant! You've got the brain of a sunburned badger, the courage of a bowl of porridge, and the grace of a giant with a head injury! You prancing, marshmallow-hearted cow!" Curry'd run out of breath by the end of it, but he yanked out that last with a hoarse belch.
"That's the second time I've been called a cow today," September sighed. "I don't know what's so horrid about being a cow. Mrs. Powell's cow is called Marjorie and she's well behaved and very useful. But I suppose I did jump over the Moon."
This book brings the entire cast back together. The rogue's gallery includes every previous horrible Fairyland ruler, including Charlie Crunchcrab, Pinecrack, the Moose Khan, Hushnow, the Ancient and Demented Raven Lord, the First Stone, the Rex Tyrannosaur, Madame Tanaquill, and September's old nemesis, the Marquess.
The tyrannosaurus looked a little shamefaced - but only a little, for dinosaurs would rather drown in tar than admit they're wrong. That unfortunate attitude played a key role in their extinction.
It's funny, heartfelt, occasionally scary and serious, and the ending was a little tidy with magic pulled out of a convenient fairy tale, but it still brought September's story to a close in a satisfying way. The last book did not suffer the meanderingness of the previous ones; it was the charm of the first book brought back for September's last great hurrah. Fairyland remains, and what of her friends? You must read and find out.
“You gotta be nice to strangers even when they are the worst, because they don't know you well enough to understand how shut your big face can mean I've missed you more than the whole world can know.”
This is a series to read to your children, or read it for yourself if you still have a child inside you.
Be nice to Fairyland. She is old and tender of heart and when her feelings are hurt, she cries volcanoes.
Also by Catherynne Valente: My reviews of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two, The Boy Who Lost Fairyland, The Habitation of the Blessed, Silently and Very Fast, Deathless, Six-Gun Snow White, and Space Opera.
My complete list of book reviews.