Every once in a great while a book comes along that reminds us of the magic spell that stories can cast over us to dazzle, entertain, and enlighten. Welcome to the Arabian Nights for our time a lush and fantastical epic guaranteed to spirit you away from the very first page.Secreted away in a garden...
I'm going to start with a digression. I love John Sayles movies. Adore them. And once you've seen them all, you can see a progression in his technique of interlocking stories about communities instead of individuals. Lone Star is the epitome of this, effortlessly moving back and forth in space and t...
4.5 Stars A young girl born with eyes rimmed in black is banished to the palace garden to live out her life. However, when a young prince befriends her, she weaves magical interwoven tales, enchanting and enthralling him. To describe In the Night Garden is an almost impossible task. It’s a colle...
Well, the short version is that the first book of "The Orphan's Tales" has blown me away. I've come to expect nothing less of Cat Valente but I am still always surprised at how emotionally attached I get to her books. My full review can be found under the link.
Catie suggested this one, and Algernon's wonderful review convinced me to hunt this book down. So far Catherynne Valente has not disappointed me. I loved "Deathless" and "The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland..." - and so I think this one will be next.This time, the library disappointed me, and so ...
Lovely. I loved the nestled stories, each rich and lovely on their own but also part of the greater story. The story crafting is masterful and the language is beautiful, but what I loved most of all was the unexpectedness of it. Female characters were front and center and each one was not quite t...
Tales within tales within tales, all woven together like a magical, colorful tapestry depicting griffins, dead moon walkers, beastly princesses, princely beasts, pirate saints, Stars, snake gods, and so much more, all written in dark ink around the eyes of a little girl. Reading Valente's prose is ...
Book as arabesque. Short story leads to short story, each providing background and impetus for the next, characters answering questions to what led them to that intersection. It's a beautiful technique that comes back around to many of the original story characters. The trouble for me is that the s...
The Orphan's Tales is definitely the best fairytale-style fantasy I've ever read. Set in a colorful fairytale world where monsters are heroes and "heroes" are monsters, where maidens do not want to be judged by their beauty and love life but by courage, skills and wisdom, where protagonists are not ...
I came across this book via a recommendation by Kusheline Legacy author Jacqueline Carey. I am so glad I decided to try it! I have never read a book like this before. A bare bones plot summary would say that this is a riff on The 1,001 Nights. There are two central characters; one is a girl who has ...
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