Some Kind of Fairy Tale (edition 2012)

The quote from Lord Dunsanay at the start of Chp. 42 lays it all out for us. "I've gone away to the fairy people / I shall not come to the town again. / You may see a girl with my face and tresses / You may see one come to my mother's door / Who may speak my words and may wear my dresses. / She will not be I, for I come no more". This novel tells the story of Tara, a girl who returns home 20 years after she went missing, claiming that she went away with the fairies. A wonderful, realistic take on what it would be like if that could really happen--and a reminder that none of us are who we were when we were young. I highly recommend Graham Joyce, especially if you like the work of Charles de Lint. ( )

The quote from Lord Dunsanay at the start of Chp. 42 lays it all out for us. "I've gone away to the fairy people / I shall not come to the town again. / You may see a girl with my face and tresses / You may see one come to my mother's door / Who may speak my words and may wear my dresses. / She will not be I, for I come no more". This novel tells the story of Tara, a girl who returns home 20 years after she went missing, claiming that she went away with the fairies. A wonderful, realistic take on what it would be like if that could really happen--and a reminder that none of us are who we were when we were young. I highly recommend Graham Joyce, especially if you like the work of Charles de Lint. ( )

2.5-3 stars ( )

I picked up this book on a whim to read from the library. It sounded interesting so I started reading it right away. I really enjoyed the writing style in this book. It was clear cut and simple, yet elegant. This was also the type of fantasy book that wasn’t action heavy. It was more about telling a story and seeing the repercussions of that story being told. The reader gets bits and pieces of what happened to Tara for all these years as the story goes along. It felt like sitting on a park bench with the fog and mist all around you. You can’t see much at first and you have this strange tingling sensation on the back of your neck but as time rolls by you start to relax and the fog goes away. Except for that one spot, way in the back that you know is there but you’re too afraid to look at it.

I really enjoyed the story as it talked about the fine line between reality and fantasy. It’s all about perspective and I like that this book was very open ended. You could either believe Tara and her stories or you could believe that she had a trauma and blocked out all that time that has passed. By the end of the novel I wasn’t sure what to believe. I wanted to believe Tara but there was a small part of me that still doubts it all. That’s what I really liked about this book.

I highly recommend it and I definitely want to look into Joyce’s other works. ( )

Joyce writes well, and this is a clever take on the fairy abduction trope.
A young girl disappears in the early 1990s and returns to her family strangely unchanged in the present day. She believes she has been away for 6 months, tricked into remaining in the realm of faerie by a plausible man who did not force her, but did not tell her the whole truth either. For them, and for the boyfriend accused of her murder, it has been 20 years of anguish and struggle. The strain of return is managed well - is she mad? Is she lying? Is she culpable? And the working out of pain, joy, resentment and helplessness is both believable and moving. I was slightly disappointed that no one quoted Professor Quirke from The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe ('have you considered that she may be telling the truth?'), but that aside this is a very enjoyable and skillful update. ( )