Book #13 - Ash
Jul. 28th, 2009 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
corrielle13. Ash by Malinda Lo
Every year around the end of July, I seem to rediscover the joy of devoting whole hours of my day to reading and the satisfaction of finishing an entire novel from cover to cover in the time between waking up and going to bed. Perhaps it's because summer school is over and con is done with and I have some space to breathe before classes start up again. In any event, I read a book today. It was the second of my Comic-con advance reader's copies, and it was fantastic. I was excited about it from the moment I picked it up and read the back, and it was even better than I thought it would be. When I got to the end, I found myself wanting to go right back to the beginning and read it again... a compulsion I haven't felt for a long time.
At its most basic, Ash is a retelling of Cinderella. But it is... so much more than that. The faeries in this version of the story play a much larger role than simply granting the orphaned girl her wishes, and the object of her desire is not a prince but the King's huntress. There have been a great many faerie tale retellings recently that have played with gender and orientation, and I think that Miss Lo does it here with a deft, light touch that makes the changes seem completely organic to the very particular version of the story she is telling.
The writing is beautiful and lucid. I don't think I've mentioned yet that this is a first novel, and a darn impressive one at that. The author has an incredible feel for detail and for atmosphere. The captures the perfect ache and glamour of the faerie world, the rush of the hunt, the mystery of the wood, and the difficulty of choosing between enchantment and real love. She also captures that wonderfully non-specific "time that is not our time" feel that good faerie stories need to have. There are bits and pieces of world building here and there, but for the most part, she paints the world with simple strokes so that the characters stand out that much more vividly against it. Ash (the Cinderella character, obviously...) is sympathetic and highly relatable, She has a mythic quality about her writing that is pitch-perfect for what she was trying to do.
I won't say any more about the plot because... that would spoil things. It is, needless to say, very satisfying, though there were a couple of places where I wish there had been three or four chapters where there were none. Not that I think this distracts from the awesomeness of this book... I just wanted more in certain places. But I'm used to wanting more from the stories I love. That they make me want more is probably one of the reasons I love them.
On a completely unrelated note, this book had a very lovely design. I realize that what I had was not a final copy, but the front cover image and the fonts and the highly decorated first letters of each chapter really made me feel like I was reading something special and ornate. I don't notice little things like that very often, but this was nicely done.
In short, I'm so glad I got my hands on this. It's fast on its way to becoming one of my favorite fantasy standalone novels.
Every year around the end of July, I seem to rediscover the joy of devoting whole hours of my day to reading and the satisfaction of finishing an entire novel from cover to cover in the time between waking up and going to bed. Perhaps it's because summer school is over and con is done with and I have some space to breathe before classes start up again. In any event, I read a book today. It was the second of my Comic-con advance reader's copies, and it was fantastic. I was excited about it from the moment I picked it up and read the back, and it was even better than I thought it would be. When I got to the end, I found myself wanting to go right back to the beginning and read it again... a compulsion I haven't felt for a long time.
At its most basic, Ash is a retelling of Cinderella. But it is... so much more than that. The faeries in this version of the story play a much larger role than simply granting the orphaned girl her wishes, and the object of her desire is not a prince but the King's huntress. There have been a great many faerie tale retellings recently that have played with gender and orientation, and I think that Miss Lo does it here with a deft, light touch that makes the changes seem completely organic to the very particular version of the story she is telling.
The writing is beautiful and lucid. I don't think I've mentioned yet that this is a first novel, and a darn impressive one at that. The author has an incredible feel for detail and for atmosphere. The captures the perfect ache and glamour of the faerie world, the rush of the hunt, the mystery of the wood, and the difficulty of choosing between enchantment and real love. She also captures that wonderfully non-specific "time that is not our time" feel that good faerie stories need to have. There are bits and pieces of world building here and there, but for the most part, she paints the world with simple strokes so that the characters stand out that much more vividly against it. Ash (the Cinderella character, obviously...) is sympathetic and highly relatable, She has a mythic quality about her writing that is pitch-perfect for what she was trying to do.
I won't say any more about the plot because... that would spoil things. It is, needless to say, very satisfying, though there were a couple of places where I wish there had been three or four chapters where there were none. Not that I think this distracts from the awesomeness of this book... I just wanted more in certain places. But I'm used to wanting more from the stories I love. That they make me want more is probably one of the reasons I love them.
On a completely unrelated note, this book had a very lovely design. I realize that what I had was not a final copy, but the front cover image and the fonts and the highly decorated first letters of each chapter really made me feel like I was reading something special and ornate. I don't notice little things like that very often, but this was nicely done.
In short, I'm so glad I got my hands on this. It's fast on its way to becoming one of my favorite fantasy standalone novels.