?

Log in

Previous Entry | Next Entry

Rosemary and Rue, by Seanan McGuire

Before I go any further into this post (i.e., start it), I have some caveats. I watch seanan_mcguire and have done so since before her book was released. Her LJ is the reason I knew about the book in the first place. I think McGuire's* LJ contains several kinds of awesome. Furthermore, Rosemary and Rue was preceded in my reading list by a mostly decent dark fantasy mystery and a mediocre urban fantasy. This is the first time in probably ever that I've bought a book on its release date, with very little to go on as to its quality. These facts will have biased my opinion of the book whether I like it or not.

You have been warned.

Also, this review is a week and a half late in coming. There is no more excuse for this than ever.

I've always been a little lukewarm towards urban fantasy. A lot of it is cliché. I find a lot of the heroines annoying, either because they don't think or because they swoon too much or because they're beat up by their authors for the sake of violence. A lot of it seems like an excuse to dress a leggy 30ish woman up in leather and give her a sword. There are a lot of vampires. There are about as many werewolves.

I prefer stories that go against convention in some way. From the pre-release reviews and plot-related hints McGuire dropped, I thought Rosemary and Rue might be an anti-convention novel. After all, nobody'd done a Changeling heroine before, and I liked the idea of Toby being forced, in pretty much every sense of the word, into catching a murderer. It didn't disappoint.

First of all, I like Toby (short for October) Daye as a heroine. She feels like a person, with flaws and virtues and a past. I sympathize with her. She's tough, smart, and, well, sentimental's the wrong word, but Toby notices her surroundings and the people she meets, and she describes them beautifully. She's caught between the world of humans and the world of fairies, and she doesn't want to deal with either, ever, ever again. I'm fairly sure I'd like to be friends with Toby. I'm not so sure she'd ever want to be friends with me, or that we'd have very much in common if she did.

I really enjoyed McGuire's portrait of the faerie world. I was expecting something a little darker based on the novel's description of "noir", something more along the lines of Wicked Lovely where the fae are downright scary, but that doesn't mean I'm not a little in love with the Rosemary and Rue world. In Rosemary and Rue there are a number of fae races—Daoine Sidhe, Cait Sidhe, Undine, and many others—and they act like people. I'm used to portrayals of fairies being radically different from portrayals of humans, so that was different. Not good. Not bad. Just different. The same goes for the magical settings. I had an easier time picturing them than I did the "real world" settings too, but this is probably because I haven't been to San Fransisco. If someone were to buy me a ticket to that city, I'd totally do a Toby Daye tour and then reread the book. (Yes, that's a hint. ;p)

And, of course, I liked the story. It was nice to read a magical murder mystery (with bonus personal journey) rather than the "I Don't Know Why People Are Trying To Kill Me, I Didn't Do Anything" or "I'm a Bounty Hunter, Watch Me Fight" plots which also tend to crop up in urban fantasy. I enjoyed the flow of the story, the pacing, the way everything kind of fit together. I also enjoyed that McGuire didn't try to keep the readers as much in the dark as she kept Toby. There's little I dislike more in a climax than the author saying, "Oh, well, you know that one page conversation 100 pages ago? That's all the clues you ever needed! And all the clues Protagonist needed too! See how they figured that out but didn't tell anyone even though they're narrating?"

I do have a minor beef about the plot, though. A number of reviewers who got reading copies or posted within a few days of the release said Rosemary and Rue kept them up all night and that they couldn't put it down. This did not happen to me. I was perfectly capable of putting the book down and picking it up again without getting too antsy in the meantime. I was certainly not seized with a desire to forego food, rest, human contact, and internet until I'd finished reading the book. I might have read a few pages in bed every morning, though….

There are a couple minor quibbles, too. I didn't get quite enough sense of the passage of time, because there are a few times Toby refers to "having a bad week" when I'm sure no more than four days have gone by. Maybe McGuire and I have different definitions of "week". And I think there was a little too much "tell" in places when Toby was describing her emotions, reactions, attitudes towards people, and so on. But meh, that's minor stuff and I still read and enjoyed the book.

Four more things before I finish the review:

1) I loaned Rosemary and Rue to my manager at work, because she likes speculative fiction of many sorts, including Jim Butcher and Charlaine Harris, and because she has more clout with the head buyer than I do. (I figured it was worth a shot, anyway.) She did read it in a day, but she reads most books that fast. She said she enjoyed parts but not other parts, and that Toby wasn't likable.

2) Sometime very  shortly after I finished Rosemary and Rue, I had an epiphany about my own WIP. It may technically be science fiction, but in terms of style and description, it needs to come off quite a bit more like urban fantasy. I am now on the lookout for any other good urban fantasy series in the same vein. I found one at Chapters yesterday, called Greywalker. Yes, I bought two books in just over two weeks. This may well be a sign of the end times. It's also McGuire's fault. (I'm allowed to blame her, right?)

3) I may appear to not be enthusing about Rosemary and Rue. This is probably true, as I don't enthuse. However, I know for certain that I'm buying the sequel when it comes out next year. (This is, as my regular readers know and irregular readers might guess, a rare event for someone who gets to read books for free all the time.) I think the last time I made the Buying The Sequel Vow was with Tanya Huff's Smoke series.

4) I am a huge dork.


Rosemary and Rue and rosemary

This is a picture of Rosemary and Rue, taken after I returned from buying it. You may notice that I'd already started reading at this point. You may also notice, if you know your herbs, that it's lying on top of a bunch of rosemary. Why do I have a bunch of rosemary in my apartment? Wouldn't you like to know…

*I've been referring to every other author by last name. For consistencies' sake, I'm doing so here as well. I'd rather use "Seanan". She seems that sort of person.

8/10 (7/10 for quality of writing, and an extra point for wanting to read the next book)
 

Profile

doctor who
quettalinde
quettalinde

Latest Month

December 2015
S M T W T F S
  12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  
Powered by LiveJournal.com
Designed by chasethestars