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The Boy Who Lost Fairyland
Ditulis oleh Catherynne M. Valente
Narasi oleh Heath Miller
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When a young troll named Hawthorn is stolen from Fairyland by the Golden Wind, he becomes a changeling - a human boy - in the strange city of Chicago, a place no less bizarre and magical than Fairyland when seen through trollish eyes.
Left with a human family, Hawthorn struggles with his troll nature and his changeling fate. But when he turns twelve, he stumbles upon a way back home, to a Fairyland much changed from the one he remembers. Hawthorn finds himself at the center of a changeling revolution - until he comes face to face with a beautiful young Scientiste with very big, very red assistant.
©2015 Catherynne Valente (P)2015 Dreamscape Media, LLC
Tindakan Buku
Mulai MendengarkanInformasi Buku
The Boy Who Lost Fairyland
Ditulis oleh Catherynne M. Valente
Narasi oleh Heath Miller
Deskripsi
When a young troll named Hawthorn is stolen from Fairyland by the Golden Wind, he becomes a changeling - a human boy - in the strange city of Chicago, a place no less bizarre and magical than Fairyland when seen through trollish eyes.
Left with a human family, Hawthorn struggles with his troll nature and his changeling fate. But when he turns twelve, he stumbles upon a way back home, to a Fairyland much changed from the one he remembers. Hawthorn finds himself at the center of a changeling revolution - until he comes face to face with a beautiful young Scientiste with very big, very red assistant.
©2015 Catherynne Valente (P)2015 Dreamscape Media, LLC
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Rating: 5My love for this writing will never end! I decided to jump into this one without being completely caught up with September's books but fortunately had no trouble since Hawthorn's story is mostly his own. I wish the plot had been a bit stronger, but it was interesting seeing what the other side of the Changeling exchange is like. Definitely recommended for fans of the series though be prepared for things to be a bit different.
Rating: 4This is book number three in Catherynne M. Valente's "The Girl Who..." series, a series ostensibly aimed at kids but also appealing and satisfying for adults who remember what it was like to be kids, and to love fairy stories and get lost in the worlds they offer.As the title might indicate, this one's a bit of a departure. The previous volume ended on quite a cliffhanger for our usual hero, September, and this one leaves her there for a good long while, although she does put in an appearance at the end. Instead, the story focuses on a different character: a troll named Hawthorn who is swapped as a changeling for a boy named Thomas and grows up in the human world, always feeling different but never quite knowing why or how. Which is a slightly disconcerting change of focus, maybe, but once you accept that, the story is as smart and as charming as the previous volumes. (Well, maybe not the first one. I think that one's still my favorite, although perhaps only because it surprised me so much.)
Rating: 4I was a little bit sad that the author wasn't the audiobook narrator this time b/c I feel like she just has the perfect tone for these but they had a male narrator instead; maybe because the main character was male this time? The story was just as smart and whimsical as previous volumes but I had a tougher time staying focused; not sure if it was b/c I wasn't totally in love with the narrator.
Rating: 3For more reviews, gifs, Cover Snark and more, visit A Reader of Fictions.Catherynne M. Valente’s series is one I believe is destined to become a classic in years to come. The Fairyland series references beautifully the classics that came before, most notable Alice in Wonderland, but has a magic all its own. It is by turns absurd, incredibly deep, and deeply silly. The Boy Who Lost Fairyland is, in some ways, a departure from the previous books, but ultimately proves a wonderful addition to the series.For the dedicated Fairyland reader, The Boy Who Lost Fairyland is a bit of a startling departure. Aside from our dear narrator, the cast is entirely new for most of the book. That is not to say that the cast is not delightful, but they’re not the dear September and her wyverary who we’ve spent three books coming to care very deeply about. For much of the book, it’s unclear how this story connects to September’s. In fact, the connection of the titular boy’s story to September’s is the purpose of the novel.The concept is an interesting one. After following September, taken away to Fairyland from the human world, we now travel with a young troll named Hawthorn to the human world. It turns out that these two worlds are driven by Newton’s Third Law, so for every human child taken to Fairyland, a Fairy creature must be sent to the human world. These creatures take the place of the human child.Hawthorn’s young life with human parents is a rather sad tale, one that can parallel the experience of anyone who feels different. He doesn’t feel like he fits in his own skin for one thing, even though he no longer remembers who or what he was by the time he would be old enough to truly understand it. Worse, he doesn’t understand a lot of common assumptions human society makes and deems common sense, such as:"If you smile, people smile back and usually start liking you. If you scowl, they scowl back and start unliking you. This is true even though smiling means showing your sharp teeth and even though you can smile at the same time as being angry or sad, so I don’t see why people should want you to do it so much, but they do."Hawthorn, now known as Thomas Rood even to himself, has trouble understanding these things. He believes that every thing should be alive, from the family oven to his pencil. It saddens him that they’re not, but he names them all anyway. For what is seen as an overly active imagination, he is shamed and judged by his parents. The main lesson of his young childhood is that he should hide beneath a facade of normalcy, something I believe most kids can relate to.Things take a turn for the better when he wins over the kids at school with his unique vision of the world. They’re charmed and amused, showing how much better children are at dealing with imagination and why it’s kids that can travel to Fairyland. They find nothing strange in the idea that a desk might think and one day even talk.The true beauty in this series for me remains in the magic of the writing and the world building. Valente is a master wordsmith. She balances classical, ornate language with a modern, lively feel so well. This is one of those books where I highlight bunches of quotes, because so much of what she has written is clever wordplay, impossibly brilliant, or both things at once.Though The Boy Who Lost Fairyland may be my least favorite of the series, it is still impossibly beautiful. Valente’s Fairyland books are not to be missed. They are triumphs of the imagination.
Rating: 4As usual, a lovely book--but probably my least favourite of the four so far. Not because of the shift in protagonist (Hawthorn/Tom is terrific), but because the plot rather meandered ... around page 180 I started feeling like the book was starting, but it was actually closing in on an ending.
Despite that one criticism, a less-than-perfect book from Ms. Valente is about 100 times more rewarding than most author's best efforts!
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
Rating: 4Despite that one criticism, a less-than-perfect book from Ms. Valente is about 100 times more rewarding than most author's best efforts!
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
This is the fourth book in the The Girl Who/Fairyland series by Valente. It was beautifully written in absolutely magical prose. I love Valente's writing style. This is a book to be read slowly and savoured. This series is supposed to wrap-up with the fifth book in the series, The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home, which is set to release in March of 2016.This book takes a detour from September’s story and instead we follow a young troll named Hawthrone who is changed with a human baby and grows up as a very different type of young boy in a human family. Eventually he meets a girl named Tamerlaine and they find out that they are not human at all but from Fairy. They end up journeying to Fairyland and in the end their story just might have some rather large implications for September as well.Although this book is a detour from the main story featuring September it does end up tying into her story in an interesting way. I enjoyed it, although with all of this series, this is a book to be read slowly and savoured. There is a lot of wonderful, sparkling description that I absolutely love, but it’s not something you can read quickly. Valente has a very distinct writing style; it’s a bit ambiguous, very prose-like, incredibly creative, and full of amazing imagery. I absolutely adore her writing style, but it is something I only read occasionally because it does require some effort to read. I absolutely loved reading about a troll who thinks he is a boy; while he’s a fairly normal troll he is very unusual for a boy and being raised as a boy is tough on him. I loved the character of Hawthrone and how he struggles to be “normal” and his relief when he finds out he isn’t normal. I think a lot of people who are a bit different will be able to relate to the everyday human struggle to seem “normal”.There is a lot of humor in this book too; Hawthorne’s list of strange human rules is especially witty and hilarious. A lot of the things that happen throughout the story are very tongue in cheek.Overall I adored this latest installment in this wonderfully creative fantasy series. The writing is absolutely stunning with beautiful prose and incredibly creative imagery. I was nervous about detouring from September’s story at first, but I shouldn’t have been. Hawthorne’s story is just as engaging and interesting as September’s has been. If you love wildly creative fantasy and beautiful prose-like writing I definitely recommend this whole series to you.
Rating: 5