Wicked girls saving themselves: Cat Valente's Deathless and A Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland

[rymenhild]

I suspect that most of my friends can be divided into two groups: the friends who'd be delighted by Catherynne M. Valente's The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making and the friends who'd thrill to Cat Valente's Deathless.

Comments

[tempestsarekind]

So I...never finished reading Fairyland online, because apparently reading a whole *book* online is too much for my delicate Luddite sensibilities or something. But I need to get my hands on the book now!

I just read Deathless a week or so ago; I was, I think, expecting it to be a different kind of story and end in a "Bluebeard" sort of way, so that threw me for a total loop. I thought it was brilliantly written, though.

Sorry, that screened post was me, not signed in

[rymenhild]

I couldn't finish Fairyland online either, for the same reason. I even printed it out and didn't manage to read it on paper. The printed book is worth the wait, though.

I see how Deathless could have been a Bluebeard story, and I think its folkloric source texts actually are closely related to the Bluebeard tale type. But Cat was doing something far more complicated than that.

Re: Sorry, that screened post was me, not signed in

[tempestsarekind]

I remembered that I had a gift card to the local bookstore, so I picked up a copy of Fairyland today! I can't read it till I'm done grading, though...

Yes, that was the thing that threw me: I was expecting a different story, and didn't even really realize it until I'd gotten to the end of the book. So one of these days I need to go back and evaluate it on its own terms. I'll always be very grateful for the chapters about Marya's childhood and the husbands coming to the door, though: I adored those.

[bookelfe]

What about those of us who would like both? Stop it with these restrictive binaries, Rym! :O

[rymenhild]

Okay, that was an oversimplification. I admit it. I was actually thinking of two specific friends to whom I regularly recommend books. One of these two friends is a Fairyland person, and would be bored and depressed by Deathless. The other can't stand books about children, but give her a novel about a kickass and sexually powerful adult woman in a dystopic universe and she will be very happy!

You are totally allowed to like both. I do, after all.

[taylweaver]

I am also expecting to like both, though, as of yet, I have read neither. (Well, part of Fairyland online, but ran into the same issues as other folks. Need to get a paper copy.)

[rymenhild]

It's great to be reading the same books as you are again. I remember the days when we'd each buy half the books we meant to read over the summer and trade them when we were done with them.

[cupenny]

I just recieved my hard copy of Fairyland- I already had Deathless. (Plus Habitations of the Blessed, which I haven't yet read.) LOVE both of them, for many different reasons. The one reason that's the same, however- I love Cat's descriptive voice, no matter what it is she's writing.

[ashen_key]

They both sound AWESOME.