Author: Malinda Lo (I am doing an in-depth author study on Malinda Lo as a final paper for a class, and this is the fifth of five fiction novels I am reviewing)
What it’s about (in 75 words or fewer): Huntress is set in the same Asian-inspired fantasy world as Ash. A summons has arrived for the king by the Fairy Queen. Xi, a fae race, have been spotted in the human world, violating a centuries-old treaty. Taisin, a gifted sage academy student, and Kaede, the councilor's daughter, are among the group appointed to visit the queen, but Taisin is haunted by visions of falling in love with Kaede and having to leave her behind.
What I think (in 250 words or fewer): Huntress is very enjoyable as a stand-alone book, and I wish I had read it before Ash, which is a book that didn't really work for me.
In some ways, Huntress is a typical hero-on-a-quest story in the style of Joseph Campbell. I'm a fan of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings so this worked well for me; I actually have written the Star-Wars-as-a-hero's-journey research paper before and could do the same for Huntress.
Malinda Lo does an excellent job of world-building in this story, and I love books that include maps with them (which is weird because I hate maps in real life).
Kaede and Taisin's romance is sweet without being too schmaltzy, and in the world they in, there is no homophobia: people just love who they love. The conflict is in the fact that Taisin is working to become a sage, and sages have to take a vow of chastity, so both girls know that their romance has a time-limit. That makes me sad because they go through a lot together and kicked a lot of evil fae butt, but alas, it looks like a future for them would not be possible.
Lo has a beautifully descriptive writing style, full of excellent uses of imagery. If I were still teaching English, I would take about a million quotes from Huntress to illustrate examples of vivid imagery in writing. That, by the way, is a compliment. Read Huntress if you like fantasy.
This book is on the 2012 Rainbow Book List.
My final takeaway (75 words or fewer): Love the world of the book, love the hero's quest (well, heroines' quest, actually) adventure story, love Malinda Lo's writing style.
I cannot stress how much I enjoy the vivid imagery in Lo's writing. Please see the quotes below for some of my favorite examples.
My favorite quotes:
- "Love is not what you fear, is it? You fear the loss of it" (paperback edition, pg. 35).
- "She dreamed of Taisin, standing in the shade of a stone building at the end of a maze of narrow streets, a bouquet of flowers in her hands like the prize at the end of a race. But no matter how fast Kaede ran, she couldn't quite reach her. The muscles in her legs groaned with the effort; her lungs heaved; she woke with a jerk, gasping" (pg. 153).
- "Taisin remembered the way it had felt when she pulled life into that tiny purple blossom, the torrent of energy through her body. She remembered the way that power rippled through Elowen like molten ore, hot and precious. This was even more exquisitely immediate; there was nothing between her and dizzying sensation. Here was the touch of Kaede's fingers on her skin, and there the soft insistence of her mouth. Taisin felt as though there were a thousand purple flowers blooming inside her, a sea of them, each opening her black eye to the sun, trembling to see the wide-open sky" (pg. 278).
- "Seen up close, the hard-packed snow became glittering ice crystals, sharp as a thousand tiny blades. Her breath steamed out of her; she watched the ice crystals melting. Her hands and arms and back screamed with the strain of clinging to the cliff's edge, but she wasn't about to give up" (pg. 299).
Other reviews: Lambda Literary and Dear Author
This book is available in the Greensboro Public Library.
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