The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two, by Catherynne M. Valente

[phoenixreads]

Comments

[juushika]

I recently reread the first book so that I could finally continue the series—but I still can't find it in myself to do that, yet; I don't feel ready, I suppose, See: my frequent issues with series, especially ongoing works; also the first is so important to me and I don't know if I'm ready, by which I mean emotionally prepared, to change/augment my experience of it. But when I am, this puts me in high hopes for what I'll find. What ultimately makes me so hesitant is that this is exactly what the series needs and what I would expect to find in Valente's work: progression, emotional growth, the books thematically mirroring September's experience within them. The first book did that, obviously, but a story about choice that never looks beyond that choice, to its consequences and denials, is more comfortable—but lacks conviction.

I'm rambling! What I mean to say is I don't think I'm ready to read these sequels yet, but this makes me think that when I am, I'll appreciate them.

By the bye, Valente clarified in her Reddit Q&A that

[phoenixreads]

I was really, really pleased with the way Valente grew the series with September in this book -- I definitely don't think you'll be disappointed on that score

[juushika]

On my reread of the first book I noticed that descriptions of September's skintone were dark—one passage midway through the book that I of course can't find now seemed to explicitly, although very briefly, indicate her as non-white. But the art most distinctly does not support this, and in a book like this—written for children, with lots of illustrations, illustrations in which I'm pretty sure Valente had direct input—the art becomes part of cannon

[phoenixreads]

If I were to guess, I'd say that Valente is aiming for "multiracial in the sense that white is not a default but her race doesn't really impact this story, therefore it can be a non-explicit background detail."Yeah, that seems to be where a lot of liberal white SFF authors like to hang out. But it's a cop-out, because race is *never* completely irrelevant, because it changes the way the other characters and the audience perceive you. So, for example, there's a scene early in (I think) the second book where September's classmates are being kind of mean to her, and the book states that this is because she's *different* now that she's been to Fairyland. And her classmates, as far as I can tell, are white (I remember one of them being blonde, and that being the only physical descriptor, so I extended that whiteness to the rest of them for lack of any other detail), so if September's white I can take the reason given (her difference post-Fairyland) as basically factual, but if she's *not* white in a predominately white school then I wonder