Holly Black - Valiant

★★★✰✰

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Synopsis: 17-year-old Valerie Russell runs away to New York City, trying to escape a life that has utterly betrayed her. She takes up with a gang of squatters who live in the city's labyrinthine subway system. Impulsive Lolli talks of monsters in the subway tunnels and shoots up an amber-coloured powder that makes the shadows around her dance. Severe Luis claims he can make deals with creatures that no one else can see. And then there's Luis's brother, Dave, who makes the mistake of letting Val tag along as he makes a delivery to a woman who turns out to have goat hooves instead of feet.

***

Review: The Modern Tale Of Faery is not a very well known series. Understandably, having read the first one. Unfortunately it suffered from Stephanie-Meyer syndrome – superb concept (and even more original than Twilight) but very poor execution, despite how easy it is to read. This second book in the series, Valiant, is not directly related to Tithe, the original. And rightly so. Black has a very carefully laid out plot in Valiant, it is well executed, and it draws you slowly and indirectly into the world of fairies. Rather than having a ‘glamoured’ faery for a lead character, we have the entirely human Val, who is much easier to relate to.

Unfortunately, the author still suffers lack of character development – while each character has a deeper personality than those in Tithe, its not enough to make you care what happens to them. Some reviews claim each character matches up to one in the original book, but I prefer to give Black’s progress a bit more credit. The world is also slightly one-dimensional – it is purely surreal. There are obvious attempts to contrast the surreal faery world with reality but the author hasn’t quite mastered it yet. Having said that, the surreal world is beautifully described in parts – Ravus’s lair for example. Black’s quirky writing style also hasn’t changed – including regular comparisons of this faery tale to a Playstation game and dominoes.

The book is classed as a Young Adult book. This surprises me, as I wouldn’t be too inclined to give it to a young teenager. The profanity is endless, although it doesn’t take away from the book. The explicit themes include drug addiction and psychological manipulation, which occur in the form of using magic to control people. There are disturbing deaths due to apathy and misuse of magic. All in all, it is a very dark read which shocked even me at times, (and that’s not an easy thing to do.) While some elements still make the shock-factor seem a little forced, it works better than in Tithe, creating a much more rounded story. With enough profanity and adult content to warrant a warning on the back cover, with themes such as drug use and magical (i.e, psychological) manipulation, this book may be listed as Young Adult but it’s certainly not for the faint hearted.

The best part of this story is the Beauty and the Beast love story, not developed enough to take precedence over the revenge and mystery elements, but still a delight to follow. Ravus is at first the thing that hides in the night, but by the end he is no more than the Beast of the Disney movie. The ending is not a traditional happily ever after like a Disney movie, there is definitely more to come, but there is enough in this one stand-alone novel to satisfy. For those who dare, this is a darkly enthralling but surprisingly easy read.

Rating: 3/5