Review: Some Kind of Fairy Tale

Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So, you go off fairyland and spend a few months there, only to come back and find that in the real world, 20 years have passed. Sucks, right? It kinda did. Tara's family does not believe in her story, although some of them are willing to admit that at least she believes in it.

I did like the premise of this book, and mostly it wasn't too bad, but I have two main issues. One is that I couldn't see where it was going for most of the story, and not in an "omgwhatsgonnahappennextImustknow"-kind of way, but rather in an "ok this boring-ass subplot better have a good pay off"-way. Not a great way to write a novel.

And the writing is my other problem with it, because the author (whom I learned halfway through passed away last year, RIP) mixes a lot of writing styles, and I don't see that there's a good reason for this. It's first and third and even second person mixed, with a few different styles mixed in there two, such as journal entries (with not indication that they are that, other than having it outright stated), stream of conciousnessy parts of drunkenness, all-knowing narrator ... it's just a liiittle too much of it.

It also annoyed me that the book refuses to tell you whether or not fairyland is actually real or not, or if maybe it was all just in Tara's head, by really flat-out having the "narrator" say that they won't reveal who they are or whether or not it was true, and then following it up with an epilogue that really only makes sense if it was true or not. The ambiguity didn't work for me.

But definitely not the worst I have read and the premise was pretty interesting. What really happens after happily ever after?

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True story.