An Earthly Knight and Wicked Lovely
Dec. 19th, 2007 01:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snugglekittyThis week I finished two books featuring teenage girls encountering the realms of faerie. One was set in Scotland in the 12th century, one was set in a modern American city.
An Earthly Knight by Janet McNaughton. I'm not an enormous fan of the twelfth century. It's kind of... well... run by the church in most places. An example of that from the book is that one of the characters is being held back from moving on with her life because she refuses to confess to something others have decided she is guilty of. Sigh. To me, that seems like such a corruption of the whole concept of confession. The main character also has a tendency to be mean to people when she's feeling uncertain, which is frustrating. The fantasy element of the book was pretty limited. Three stars. I won't read it again, and probably won't seek out other works by McNaughton.
Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr. If I'm not an enormous fan of medieval fantasy, I AM an enormous fan of urban fantasy, and this was that. I thought it was very original. The characters were quite believable, and the ending was startling in a great way, and the view of faery was unique. Not everything was explained at the end, and I don't know if I liked that or not. Usually I do, but not everything made sense to me at the end about the stuff that had happened before the book started to set things in motion. But that's my only beef. I loved the way the main character stood up for herself and the life she wanted even when at great disadvantage. Four stars. I hope we'll see more from Ms. Marr.
The two books actually made pretty good companion pieces. The main characters, settings, and plots were different enough that I didn't feel like I was reading the same book twice at once.
An Earthly Knight by Janet McNaughton. I'm not an enormous fan of the twelfth century. It's kind of... well... run by the church in most places. An example of that from the book is that one of the characters is being held back from moving on with her life because she refuses to confess to something others have decided she is guilty of. Sigh. To me, that seems like such a corruption of the whole concept of confession. The main character also has a tendency to be mean to people when she's feeling uncertain, which is frustrating. The fantasy element of the book was pretty limited. Three stars. I won't read it again, and probably won't seek out other works by McNaughton.
Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr. If I'm not an enormous fan of medieval fantasy, I AM an enormous fan of urban fantasy, and this was that. I thought it was very original. The characters were quite believable, and the ending was startling in a great way, and the view of faery was unique. Not everything was explained at the end, and I don't know if I liked that or not. Usually I do, but not everything made sense to me at the end about the stuff that had happened before the book started to set things in motion. But that's my only beef. I loved the way the main character stood up for herself and the life she wanted even when at great disadvantage. Four stars. I hope we'll see more from Ms. Marr.
The two books actually made pretty good companion pieces. The main characters, settings, and plots were different enough that I didn't feel like I was reading the same book twice at once.
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Date: 2007-12-20 08:44 pm (UTC)M.
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Date: 2007-12-20 08:57 pm (UTC)