Book #19: Arrow, by rj_anderson

[grav_ity]

not your average fairy-tale, a pacifist I don't hate, girls are awesome, boys are awesome (but sometimes kind of not), she's thirty and she's STILL AMAZING, disabled character, okay I'll admit it: you've grown on me.

I didn't love Wayfarer. I liked it well enough, but even though I kind of liked Linden, I didn't really connect with Timothy. And most of the plot revolved around Idiot Pacifists, and that drives me insane. And I was terrified that Robin was still evil. So, you know, there were things.

But OMG, I loved Rhosmari SO MUCH. Possibly as much as I love Knife, although I love Knife a lot, so that might be getting ahead of myself. I just...AGH, I love her. I love her for taking action and for puking when Peri said she'd given her name to Paul and for giving her name to Timothy and for shooting to wound and for not being an idiot and for having a brain and for respecting Garan, even if she didn't love him.

(OMG, GARAN! THAT WAS ALMOST AS MEAN AS WHAT HAPPENED TO THE DOG!)

I also kind of love Martin. And I'm not sure if I'm supposed to love him that much. And if he turns super evil in Swift, I am not sure what I am going to do, because I just want to give him a hug and find him a nice theatre troupe to settle down with AND WE CAN ALL LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER, because what he did was just as necessary as what Rhosmari did, and they both need some SERIOUS HEALING, and I am ALL FLAILY ABOUT IT.

I finally managed to connect with Timothy. I have no idea why. AND PAUL! *flails* Oh, I love them all.

The whole creativity thing really terrifies me. I think one of the reasons I was so upset in Wayfarer is that we found out how the faeries fell, in this world's version of the Eden myth, and I was just REALLY SAD because, as I understood it, God was all "Hey, I'll be right back and make you a companion!" and the faery was all "Okay!", but then God was busy and the faery was lonely, so she made a male version of herself but couldn't manage the wings, and then God punished her by taking away her creativity, and I AM VERY SCARED OF THIS.

ETA: Okay that's totally not what happened. The faery was supposed to stay with Adam and Eve, and she left them, and THAT'S why she lost her creativity and then she married Cain and boy faeries just don't have wings. Apparently the part where SHE LOST HER CREATIVITY just sticks with me and I try to make it EVEN WORSE.

(I get that it's a faith thing. This doesn't meant that every time I sit down in Starbucks and open my laptop, I don't think "Please, God, don't let today be the day the words stop coming.")

The other thing that I love about this book is the Power of Naming Stuff. Because this is something I think about a lot. There is the name I call myself, and the name that people call me, but My Name is something else entirely and I'm not even sure I know what it is to tell it to someone I trusted (it would be a long name, PhD thesis long, but it would describe all the things I fear about myself), but if I told you what it was, you would own me.

I did mention the meandering.

Um, also? Peri is awesome. JUST AWESOME. In my head, I am writing a fanfic where she and Helen Magnus hammer out some sort of Faery Protection Agreement and IT WOULD BE AWESOME. Perhaps I shall request it at Yuletide...

9/10 for Rhosmari being amazing, Peri being amazing, Paul being amazing, Robin not giving me a heart attack, the bit at Waverly Hall, Timothy being kind of awesome and because I could write about eight crossovers without even getting up. ;)

Comments

[shadadukal]

I'm amazed at the speed at which you read.

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

Man, this isn't even me when I'm obsessive. ;) I very rarely put down a book after I've started it (well, for YA in any case), and I typically buy books in groups and then READ THEM REALLY FAST. ;)