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coraaHow to Ditch Your Fairy, by Justine Larbalestier
In the city of New Avalon, most people have a fairy—an invisible spirit or power or maybe just a chunk of free-floating luck that gives them a particular ability or advantage. Charlie's best friend Rochelle has a clothes-shopping fairy: when she goes shopping, she can always find something super-flattering that fits perfectly... and that is on extreme markdown. Charlie's mother has a Knowing What Your Kids Are Up To fairy, and always knows intuitively when Charlie's gotten herself into trouble. Charlie's classmate Fiorenze has an All The Boys Like You fairy. And Charlie, Charlie has a parking fairy. Charlie hates her parking fairy and wants to get rid of it, and she also hates the way Fiorenze's fairy is jerking around the boy she likes. But her plan to fix both of those things only makes everything worse.
This was a very fun book, very light. What I think of as a bathtub read. It reads very quickly; I finished it in one sitting. And I found Charlie very likable, even when I had those moments where I-the-reader realized that what Charlie was trying to do was very ill-advised. Like Charlie's envy of the All The Boys Like You fairy. I had enough perspective to realize that that would be more of a nightmare curse than a blessing, but it didn't make me see Charlie as an idiot for not realizing it, since I'm not totally sure I would have realized exactly how bad that could be at age 13 or 14. Similarly, at first I thought Charlie was being kind of whiny for wanting to ditch her fairy (a parking fairy wouldn't be my first choice, but it'd surely be better than no power at all?), but I became more sympathetic when I quickly realized that she kept being dragged along (and, in one case, actually kidnapped) on trips she didn't want to make because people wanted to take advantage of her power.
So, anyway, the book was very character-centric and the plot is almost wholly character-driven. Indeed, the 'external' plot, which involved betting on high school sports, seemed the weakest part to me; its most important influence was the way it affected Charlie, and the parts that didn't involve Charlie directly just seemed to fade off. That didn't bother me too much, because I read much more for character and worldbuilding than for plot, but it felt like that subplot was a bit of scaffolding that could have been excised without much detriment to the book. But that's minor. (Also minor: because I'm a worldbuilding junkie, I wanted more of an idea of what was up with New Avalon, its somewhat-unusual social structures, and why they had fairies when nobody else did? Or perhaps other people did but didn't realize it? But again, the book was so character-centric that I have trouble faulting it for not getting into more worldbuilding geekery.)
Anyway. Fast, fun, light read. Recommended, espeically for plane trips and rainy Saturdays. And bathtubs, if you're a bathtub reader like me.
I knew from the beginning that Fiorenze's fairy would be more of a curse than a blessing, especially when it became clear that the boys would like you but still be themselves—so a nice boy would like you in a nice way, but a clingy, obsessive boy would like you in a clingy, obsessive way, and a creepy, demanding boy would... yeah. I grokked Charline not realizing that off the bat, since she is fourteen, but I was a little surprised that she wasn't clued in when she found out that Fiorenze was desperate to get rid of the power. Although she did figure out pretty damn quick after she traded for the power.
Charlie's romance with Steffi was plausible and sweet although it didn't particularly push my shippy buttons. I was glad that Larbalestier touched on the potentially creepy-as-hell implications of Steffi's fairy: he has a Doesn't Get In Trouble fairy. If she writes more in this universe, I'd love to see the implications of Steffi (who does seem to be basically a nice guy) navigating morality when he knows he'll never actually be punished for doing bad things.
In the city of New Avalon, most people have a fairy—an invisible spirit or power or maybe just a chunk of free-floating luck that gives them a particular ability or advantage. Charlie's best friend Rochelle has a clothes-shopping fairy: when she goes shopping, she can always find something super-flattering that fits perfectly... and that is on extreme markdown. Charlie's mother has a Knowing What Your Kids Are Up To fairy, and always knows intuitively when Charlie's gotten herself into trouble. Charlie's classmate Fiorenze has an All The Boys Like You fairy. And Charlie, Charlie has a parking fairy. Charlie hates her parking fairy and wants to get rid of it, and she also hates the way Fiorenze's fairy is jerking around the boy she likes. But her plan to fix both of those things only makes everything worse.
This was a very fun book, very light. What I think of as a bathtub read. It reads very quickly; I finished it in one sitting. And I found Charlie very likable, even when I had those moments where I-the-reader realized that what Charlie was trying to do was very ill-advised. Like Charlie's envy of the All The Boys Like You fairy. I had enough perspective to realize that that would be more of a nightmare curse than a blessing, but it didn't make me see Charlie as an idiot for not realizing it, since I'm not totally sure I would have realized exactly how bad that could be at age 13 or 14. Similarly, at first I thought Charlie was being kind of whiny for wanting to ditch her fairy (a parking fairy wouldn't be my first choice, but it'd surely be better than no power at all?), but I became more sympathetic when I quickly realized that she kept being dragged along (and, in one case, actually kidnapped) on trips she didn't want to make because people wanted to take advantage of her power.
So, anyway, the book was very character-centric and the plot is almost wholly character-driven. Indeed, the 'external' plot, which involved betting on high school sports, seemed the weakest part to me; its most important influence was the way it affected Charlie, and the parts that didn't involve Charlie directly just seemed to fade off. That didn't bother me too much, because I read much more for character and worldbuilding than for plot, but it felt like that subplot was a bit of scaffolding that could have been excised without much detriment to the book. But that's minor. (Also minor: because I'm a worldbuilding junkie, I wanted more of an idea of what was up with New Avalon, its somewhat-unusual social structures, and why they had fairies when nobody else did? Or perhaps other people did but didn't realize it? But again, the book was so character-centric that I have trouble faulting it for not getting into more worldbuilding geekery.)
Anyway. Fast, fun, light read. Recommended, espeically for plane trips and rainy Saturdays. And bathtubs, if you're a bathtub reader like me.
I knew from the beginning that Fiorenze's fairy would be more of a curse than a blessing, especially when it became clear that the boys would like you but still be themselves—so a nice boy would like you in a nice way, but a clingy, obsessive boy would like you in a clingy, obsessive way, and a creepy, demanding boy would... yeah. I grokked Charline not realizing that off the bat, since she is fourteen, but I was a little surprised that she wasn't clued in when she found out that Fiorenze was desperate to get rid of the power. Although she did figure out pretty damn quick after she traded for the power.
Charlie's romance with Steffi was plausible and sweet although it didn't particularly push my shippy buttons. I was glad that Larbalestier touched on the potentially creepy-as-hell implications of Steffi's fairy: he has a Doesn't Get In Trouble fairy. If she writes more in this universe, I'd love to see the implications of Steffi (who does seem to be basically a nice guy) navigating morality when he knows he'll never actually be punished for doing bad things.
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Date: 2010-02-22 04:44 am (UTC)I thought it was curious that Steffi, coming as he did from somewhere else, had a fairy when they seem so linked to New Avalon. Perhaps its something in the water?
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