Title : The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two (Fairyland #3)
Author : Catherynne M. Valente
Publication date : October 1st 2013
by Feiwel & Friends
It took me quite a long time to finish reading The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two. The first two books are amazing and the made me understand how much September missed her friends, Saturday and Ell. In fact, I can say that I love them as much as September does, so when I found out that September finally reunited with them, I was super happy.
September felt that she had grown up and began to question whether she would be invited again to Fairyland. It turned out that she did and in fact she went higher and higher to the moon. The adventure began and September had a mission to stop a yeti from hurting it. The moon, that is.
Gosh, this book is totally different with its predecessor. The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two is tad boring and the narration is too flowery it overshadows the plot. There's nothing important happen in this book and it is also painfully slow. 6 pages and September is still talking to the same character. It's also full of preaching about money, love, with its whimsical narration, it's just too much.
"All money is imaginary" answered the Calcatrix simply. "Money is magic everyone agrees to pretend is not magic. Observe! You treat it like magic, wield it like magic, fear it like magic! Why should a body with more small circles of copper or silver or gold than anyone else have an easy full of treats every day and sleeping in and other people bowing down? The little circles can't get up and fight a battle or make a supper or so splendid you get full just by looking at it or build a house of thousand gables. They can do this things because everyone agree to give them power. If everyone agreed to stop giving power to pretty metals and started giving it to thumbnails or mushroom caps or roof shingles or first kisses or tears or hours or puffin feathers, those little circles would just lay there tarnishing in the rain and not making anyone bow their noses down to the ground or stick them up in the air. Right now, for example, as much as I admire your collection, your coins aren't coins. They're junk."
How about that? A whole long paragraph, just to tell her that she won't accept September's money.
The plot itself is kind of empty. 250 pages and all September did is listening to the creature of the moon, magically travels to another place, talk with creature again on and on until the end. Where's the action?! I want to scream. Oh, here's what annoys me the most. September waited a full year to finally got back to Fairyland to meet her friends, but once she was there, she didn't really interact with them. A big epic shame! We know you miss Saturday and Ell, talk to them, for Heaven's sake!
I miss the cute and touching story like I got in book one or a good adventure in book two. Well, both of them have very high standard to begin with, don't blame me for having a higher expectation. Now that I read book three, I wonder which audience Valente's aiming for. This series, though looks like a children's book from the outside is just too much to digest by younger readers (see the quote above). I don't think they would enjoy reading 250 pages of flowery narration and unusual vocabularies. As for adults, well, we need more complexities, don't we? Well, these series don't really have them. So, here's my favorite quote instead:
"It it? Have you done a long, hard thing for the sake of someone you loved, so long and so hard that your body shook with the difficulty of it, that you were thirsty and aching and ravenous by the time it was done, but it did not matter, you did not even feel the thirst or the pain or the hunger, because you were doing what was Necessary?"
2 rating for The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two. I actually didn't like it, but 1 plus rating for my love of Ell and Saturday. I have a commitment to finish the series also because I've fallen in love with those characters. How about you? Have you read this series or children's literature lately? How was it?
