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

A fun, light read. I enjoyed it, but didn't fall completely in love with the world and characters. It had some marvellous ideas like the swarms of migrating bicycles or Mr Map, but they were lightly touched upon and then swept away into the wind never to be heard of again, which is a shame because it is a rich and original world, and these creations deserve a fuller fleshing-out. The art of saying just enough and promising more perhaps, but still I did want more out of it. I initially gave it 3 stars but having looked at the other books I've given 3 stars to, it's definitely better than those.

No spoilers, but it had a more emotional ending than I was expecting, and I think the book got better as it went on and the plot developed more. Again, could have been deeper; at times it felt like a lighthearted romp, but in the background were these dire and serious perils swirling around. I suppose really I wanted a more grownup, less YA read, and it's unfair to judge it on that basis.

The feel of the book was lovely, an autumnal twilight world with glimpses and glimmers and everything dusted with sugar or magic or poison. There was a phrase that really struck home; about leaving your heart somewhere and never having it back, I felt that way for many years about my undergraduate university town. Eventually I think your heart finds its way back to you, or perhaps you grow a new one, ready to be filled and lost and found again.

We stalled about 3/4s of the way through. I thought we'd never return, but 5 or so months later we did and were happy we did. It was clever, often dark and I enjoyed the fairy-tale meta commentary (to a point). I didn't like that it was the start if a series (although the boys did). I just wanted it to end.

This is like a high-end restaurant's classy, deconstructed version of one's favorite childhood dessert: it hits all the warm and fuzzy notes that a fun, romp-like, young-adult faerie tale should, while also having very worthwhile commentary on such topics as security theatre, the advantages and lack thereof of growing up, and the importance of feeling that you have agency over your own life.

Despite trying to cover some Big Ideas, and despite having some of the best world-building I've ever read, I barely noticed either of those things until I finished, because ultimately, The Girl Who Circumnavigated [etc] is, at it's heart, a faerie tale, and it reads like one: seamless and mythic. I felt wrapped up in the plot and the characters, with some room spared to appreciate the atmosphere. It was just once I finished that I realized how novel the book was. This is the type of book that I'll want to reread over and over again, and I am completely confident that I will find more each time I do.

It's worth noting, as an aside, that Valente's work is also extremely strong from a gender perspective: she has self-sufficient, interesting female characters who have myriad personalities and goals besides romantic ones. And unlike some books that have gotten critical acclaim for strong female characters, The Girl Who [etc] stars characters who break the bookish-eager to please-sidekick mold of female characters: the titular September is brash, nosy and heartless as well as brave, inventive and persistent; her mother is a mechanic.

There are so many other positive things to say: the denouement is clever (and extremely obvious once you know it, but so brave that I never expected it to be true!) and profound and sad, all at once. There is a Wyverary - a mix of a wyvern and a library who knows everything about everything as long as it starts with the letters A-L. There is a soap golem, who of course, has Truth inscribed on her forehead, and is of course, named Lye.

It's like the Phantom Tollbooth crashed into a faerie tale and it is absolutely delicious.