Book review: A Local Habitation

Today's book review is A Local Habitation by Seanan McGuire.

This is the second book in the Toby Daye series which began with Rosemary and Rue.  It is a complete story, but it makes more sense in the context of the world set in the first volume.

I've been procrastinating this for days because what I'm about to say is painful for me, but it's time to get it over with.  I didn't like this book very much.  The world is still engaging, and there are developments in the ongoing relationships of ongoing characters that I was happy about.  And I continue to enjoy the way Seanan puts words, sentences, paragraphs, and scenes together.  But this particular plot is not to my taste, and there's a real darkness, a hint of nihilism, bringing about the sort of thoughts that I read fantasy to avoid because the daily news is so full of them.  It's not all dark and icky, not at all; if it were, I wouldn't hesitate to say I hated it regardless of who wrote it.  But it's darker than I'm ready to handle right now.

( mildly spoilery comments )

6 out of 10.

( plot summary )