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Book review: An Artificial Night
Oct. 9th, 2010 09:52 pmNow, to actually catch up with book reviews, today's is An Artificial Night by Seanan McGuire.
This is the the third book in the Toby Daye series. It's a complete story, but it is part of a series, and it's easier to understand the characters if you start at the beginning with Rosemary and Rue.
My favorite thing about the Toby books from the start has been the world -- rich and deep and well thought out. In this book, we concentrate on one particular part of the faerie world, and we draw on a lot of folklore material. We don't really advance any of the big questions about how Toby's world works that I'm really curious about, which was a small disappointment, but as I thought about it, I realized that in this book, we take on head-on one of the darker, ickier parts of the traditional folklore, and show both that it really is part of Toby's world, and how it is possible for things to get better. However, the development that's most important in this book is of characters, not of the world. Toby started out the series troubled and damaged by her past; in this book she really starts to come into her own, and it's awesome. We also get to see a lot of development of a couple of my favorite minor characters.
As I'm writing this, I'm realizing that I don't feel quite as enthusiastic about this book as I think I should. I think it's because of the mood I'm in right now, but I base my ratings on how I feel about having read the book, without trying to second-guess too much. So I'm giving this an 8 out of 10.
( plot summary )
This is the the third book in the Toby Daye series. It's a complete story, but it is part of a series, and it's easier to understand the characters if you start at the beginning with Rosemary and Rue.
My favorite thing about the Toby books from the start has been the world -- rich and deep and well thought out. In this book, we concentrate on one particular part of the faerie world, and we draw on a lot of folklore material. We don't really advance any of the big questions about how Toby's world works that I'm really curious about, which was a small disappointment, but as I thought about it, I realized that in this book, we take on head-on one of the darker, ickier parts of the traditional folklore, and show both that it really is part of Toby's world, and how it is possible for things to get better. However, the development that's most important in this book is of characters, not of the world. Toby started out the series troubled and damaged by her past; in this book she really starts to come into her own, and it's awesome. We also get to see a lot of development of a couple of my favorite minor characters.
As I'm writing this, I'm realizing that I don't feel quite as enthusiastic about this book as I think I should. I think it's because of the mood I'm in right now, but I base my ratings on how I feel about having read the book, without trying to second-guess too much. So I'm giving this an 8 out of 10.
( plot summary )