Ironside by Holly Black

So, changelings. I've always been fascinated and creeped out by the idea of changelings. The idea is that the faeries come and steal a baby away and leave something behind in its place cloaked in glamour (illusion). The thing they leave behind might be a log or bundle of straw and then the illusion either wears off and reveals what is underneath or the baby seems to die before the magic dissipates. Sometimes though they leave a faerie baby behind and the magic never wears off but the babies are difficult and sickly. As they grow they develop into wild cantankerous children who act out and run away. From a pragmatic view this is an early explanation for difficult children that absolves the parents of responsibility.

The thing is that these stories always focus on the human parents or sometimes the human baby...but they are always human-centric. Ironside focuses on the faerie child instead as a protagonist which is an interesting  perspective. After all, what must it be like to realize that your parents aren't your parents and that you aren't even human?

Even though the first two books in the series have little in the way of shared characters, this third book in the series brings most of the main characters from both of the earlier books back. Roiben is about to be crowned; Kaye is still in love with him and insecure about it. Corney is dealing with his trauma from the first book and looking for ways to protect himself from the fey. Val and Ravus are making a go of the whole human & troll love match thing, but don't turn up much. Dave is still broken and burned out from his drug overdose, but Luis features more in this last book and finally gets some resolution.

The plot picks up a couple of months after the second book with the coronation of Roiben as the unseelie king. Kaye declares her love to him publicly and receives a seemingly impossible quest which she takes as a rejection. Casting about for a path, she decides to tell her human family the truth and gets wrapped up in the seelie queen's plot to take over the unseelie court.

In some ways, I think this the best of the three books. The first two were fun reads but there is a better balance to the story in Ironside. The intrigue means that this isn't just a teen romance which is nice. I'm sad that there aren't any more books in the series, the world is a lot of fun.

Valiant by Holly Black

It's always weird writing posts for multiple books in a series, which is why I started doing those series posts a while back. Those series posts always felt a little lack luster though and so now I'm back to this.

I'm not sure what I expected from a second novel in the Modern Faerie Tale series. I guess I assumed that the story would follow Kaye or at least Roiben. However, Valiant introduces entirely new characters. While still part of the same world, there is almost no cross-over in characters.

Valiant introduces Val who is something of a jock and something of a tom-boy. She plays lacrosse at school has a gay friend named Ruth and a boyfriend with a mohawk named Tom. There's nothing unusual or difficult about her life, she's just drifting through. That changes when she accidentally walks in on her boyfriend cheating on her with another woman, and the last woman Val would have expected.

Val goes to a hockey game to clear her head and just doesn't go home. It's not a concious decision, she just fails to get on the train home and soon is distracted by meeting Lolli and Dave who live in an abandoned subway station. Val fits right in. Soon, Val meets Dave's brother Luis and finds out how the exiled fey manage to survive in New York City. Oh, and obviously she discovers that the fey exist.

The only glaring problem is that someone is killing the fey and humans are high up on the suspect list.

This one reminded me less of the paranormal romances and more of Francesca Lia Block's Weetsie Bat books. I think because there is more of a dreamy quality to some of the writing. During her time on the streets, Val experiments with a drug that is a sort of magical acid. So there is a sort of weird magical realism going on.

Clearly there are some tough themes here, but relevant to a teenaged audience. Aside from the drugs, Val spends most of the book living rough on the streets. It's appropriate for teens but does require a more mature mindset.

Tithe by Holly Black

I've read Tithe before. I know this, but during my reread I never remembered what happened which isn't normal for me. The Modern Faerie Tale series was intensely popular for a few years when I first started teaching so I picked up the first of the three books. I remember liking it, but that's about it.

In this story Kaye is a teenager who follows her mom from city to city as she tries to succeed in the rock world. Mom is not terribly successful and so Kaye mostly takes care for her as well as herself. She has dropped out of school and going nowhere fast.

Kaye is an odd kid. For one thing, she's seen fairies and sometimes when she's day dreaming things happen.

The premise of the world is that all the fey folk in the stories still exist and live in the more wild places. The reason we don't see more of them is that we surround ourselves with iron which makes them ill. Kaye is more wrapped up in it all than even she knows when her fairy friends deliver a revelation about Kaye's origins and she meets a tortured fairy knight, Roiben.

Basically this is a teen level paranormal romance: all the weird romantic situations without any of the ...ah... "heated moments." Think fantasy adventure mixed with high school drama.

The characters are fun and the world richly imagined if somewhat gritty. This isn't high literature or anything, but it is a lot of fun.