Huntress (edition 2011)

Huntress is a sort of prequel to Ash, but it is set a long time before it. If I remember rightly, this story is mentioned in Ash. Anyway, this story is about the journey of six people: Con, the son of the king; Taisin, a young woman who wants to be a celibate sage; Kaede, a classmate of Taisin's with no talent for the magic; and Shae, Pol and Tali, their guards. They have to see the Fairy Queen, during a period when nature has gone out of balance.

The story of the journey itself isn't really unique, but the love between Kaede and Taisin is. I loved the fact that the book treats them in pretty much the same way as a male-female couple is usually treated in fantasy stories -- I mean, that it seems natural and inevitable that they should be drawn together, and that their desire for each other is palpable and not treated euphemistically. Okay, there's nothing explicit, but the physicality of their relationship is there.

It's also easy to read, a quick read, and the situations and emotions ring reasonably true. The emotional involvement that was lacking in Ash was definitely there, for me, which made it that much more enjoyable.

I really wish books like this had existed when I was younger. I hope the arrival on the market of books like Ash and Huntress isn't just a one off. ( )

I guess I'd give it more like three and a half stars. I was pretty into it for most of the way, but the ending was sort of rushed. On the other hand, it was nice to read a fantasy novel where I didn't have to worry that there was going to be be a bunch of cringy misogynistic bullshit. ( )

Plot: 3 stars
Characters: 4 stars
Style: 3 stars
Pace: 3 1/2 stars


This is really more a 3 1/2 star book. I wanted to like it. I really did. But it hits so many of the standard story tropes, and shifts with the omniscient POV way too often. If it had stayed focused on the two girls, it would have been better, but I half expected to get the pov of a passing rabbit or something, as often as it changed. ( )

I've already read one of Malinda Lo's books: [b:Ash|6363322|Ash|Malinda Lo|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1342965660s/6363322.jpg|6550542].

I haven't written a review for it, but my criticisms for that book are exactly the same as the ones I have for this book.

The story starts off well enough, and promptly decides to become pathetic. And I don't mean it in the pathos sense either, if you were thinking (somehow) that I was praising it. Don't get me wrong, if Ms. Lo could tighten up her endings I think this book could probably have shifted up to a 3.5 star rating. I'm just displeased at how she took a pretty interesting adventure tale, and turned it into a flop. Part of the problem is that the author tries to remove the most common of cliches, the perfect ending that happens quite often in romance (if this doesn't mean anything to you, they don't end up together, OK?), and fails spectacularly, leaving me to wonder what exactly happened at the end. Also, deus-ex was quite prevalent in this tale, where people appeared, or events happened at precisely the right time, conveniently propelling the story along.

A personal pet peeve about any book with glbq themes is that often (usually when lesbians are prevalent in the story) straight couples are either demonized, or not given any positions of importance in terms of the story. I'm not entirely sure why, but that's what I've found. ( )

Pacing is your FRIEND, Malinda. The pacing in this is wildly off, with everything at the outset taking pages and pages of carefully delineated detail and then approximately 70% of the story crammed into the last thirty pages.

I can't point to what exactly gives me the impression that this is a book of telling, not showing, but something is; the emotions in Kaede and Taisin's relationship seem shallow, somehow, and I was totally unaffected by the various deaths.

And why, oh why, are the Xi seemingly European fae? ( )