Ahmet Derindere Derindere থেকে Pontgarreg, Llandysul, Ceredigion SA44 6AU, UK
When Val walks in on an unimaginable betrayal she heads off for New York City, G.I Jane’s her head and hooks up with teens that live in an abandoned subway station; kids who have dealings with faerie and spend a lot of their time getting high on faerie medicine. When Val finds herself tumbling down their rabbit hole she lands in the middle of faerie espionage. I LOVE this book. Valiant has that extra ‘something’ that Tithe didn’t, and I think it all comes down to Val, who is just a brilliant character. Holly Black’s overall characterisation is excellent. Her teens are really damaged and she does an excellent job of describing their descent, never shying from the shocking downward spiral from teen delinquency to dangerous addicts. Through Val, a girl (although she has her own problems) who is a lot more together than the Dave, Lollie and Luis, Black allows the reader to grasp the kind of power the faerie medicine, Never, has over them – because if it makes Val feel better about her life, then surely it’s understandable that it would make these three teen subway rats feel untouchable and untouched. From the height of their bliss Black brings them crashing down, her beautifully crafted prose seeping reality into the teens tenuous hold on the fae world, how the addiction narrows their perspective, and like real drug addicts takes them on dangerous roads through careless acts. Like Tithe, Valiant is abstract and gritty, the fine nuances and gothic allusion to Alice in Wonderland and Billy Goats Gruff just pure genius for me. Moreover, I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed the Beauty and the Beast concept - Val’s attraction to Ravus. Even more clever, Black made Ravus attractive to me, the reader, despite his façade. The plot itself is absolutely wonderful. We step outside of Kaye and Roiben’s story from Tithe and we follow Val’s journey from reality, to servitude to a troll, to valiant saviour of troll, to defender of the fae… where she journeys into Roiben’s world and shows him that sometimes mortals are braver than an entire seelie/unseelie court put together. It’s hard not to love Val’s character. Despite her faults, despite how messed up she gets sometimes, she doesn’t judge a book by its cover. And once you have her loyalty, she’ll punch a stuck up high school girl in the face and even take on a faerie spy with only a glass sword and some savvy. Love Love Love. Holly Black is my new Angela Carter. So happy. Five Massive Massive Stars!