The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two (Fairyland #3) by Catherynne M. Valente

Synopsis 

September misses Fairyland and her friends Ell, the Wyverary, and the boy Saturday. She longs to leave the routines of home, and embark on a new adventure. Little does she know that this time, she will be spirited away to the moon, reunited with her friends, and find herself faced with saving Fairyland from a moon-Yeti with great and mysterious powers (goodreads.com).

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Review

Plot

In this third Fairyland book, September is taken to Fairyland or actually its moon. I will begin by explaining that the first half of the book was extremely difficult to read because it was just way too far out there. More so than it should have been even for Valente. I had to read rather slowly to figure out what was going on and exactly what it was I was supposed to be picturing and I still am not too sure. It was so nonsensical that I could barely read the book, but I really wanted to see her old friends again.

There really isn’t much of a plot and it doesn’t even really begin until over half way through. She finds out that the moon earthquakes are being caused my a moon-Yeti and she must stop him from destroying the moon and people’s homes. As a result, roughly the first 115 pages are soooo slow. There were so many times when I just wanted to skip to the end and just see what happened, but I ended up sticking with it.

Afterwards, the story picks up just a little bit and some parts (not all) start to become more interesting and make just a little bit more sense. It picks up here because we finally get to see September’s old friend A through L. Oh how I missed him! A little while later Saturday also joins the group and they all go together to find the moon Yeti.

The ending was pretty strange and kind of good I guess. You figure out that the Yeti isn’t the one causing all the problems on the moon and is only trying to help her in her time of need (yes the moon is alive and is a she). What the moon yeti is helping with is something that you should probably read because I don’t want to give the ending away. It was rather interesting yet strange I suppose.

In the other books, they end when September is returned back home, but in this one that doesn’t happen. It almost does, but then she ends up elsewhere. This will make me want to read the next book because it is about a boy apparently so I am a bit intrigued. I will have to find out what is going on there.

Characters

On her adventure to the moon September meets many different characters and I can tell you I do not remember any of them. Except for the Taxi-crab, who was kind of interesting, I didn’t like any of the characters and didn’t find them to be memorable. There were also way too many and they don’t play a big part in the story.

For this reason, I was so grateful that A-through-L and Saturday were in the story because if they would not have been I wouldn’t have finished it. I was upset that they were only in it for the last half of the book however 😦 A-through-L is pretty interesting  because he had a curse put upon him where if he breaths fire he ends up shrinking. It was actually one of the most entertaining parts of the book, which was pretty sad.

Oh dear, I can’t really say anything else about the characters because the majority of them were just way too strange for my tastes and completely uninteresting. I just wish her old friends would have been in it from the beginning.

Writing

As always, I do love Valente’s writing even if her story is rather strange. Her writing is very beautiful and descriptive and has an Alice and Wonderland feel to it.

Overall Thoughts

I would not read this book again and wish I just could have read a spoiler that told me all I needed to know about the book in a paragraph instead of wasting my time. However, if you really enjoy the very strange and nonsensical than you will probably like this book way more than I did. I know there are tons of people who seemed to have enjoyed it more, but I am not sure why. Maybe if you are a huge fan of Valente than you will enjoy the book. So far, I think this is the worst in the series, however I am going to read the next couple if only to finish the series. It really is an okay book and maybe I am being too hard on it, but it just wasn’t what I was hoping for after reading the previous two books and really liking them.

My rating: 3/5 stars!

View this book on Amazon and Goodreads!

My other reviews in this series

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There

Check out these other reviews from fellow bloggers!

A review by The Pooka Picks

A review by Good Books and Good Wine

A review by SFF Book Reviews

 

 

*photo provided by goodreads.com