Thank you Bookish First/NetGalley for my copy of Unseelie! I was so excited to dig into this book, primarily for its autism representation, but also because I’ve always been fascinated by changeling stories. Immediately, Seelie’s wry sense of humor struck me when she said in the first few pages, “I seriously doubt that the faeries of the Unseelie Court will be scared off by what is essentially steak seasoning, but it’s a nice thought.” The found family dynamic in the story has a brief beginning as enemies to reluctant partners to friends, but you knew it was coming a mile away. Raze’s “baby face,” soft yet strong body, and ginger hair with relentless freckles honestly had me making dreamy eyes; this is not a heartthrob look that gets a lot of rep, but it was totally up my alley. Seelie’s issues with her magic, like pushing it down, are definitely metaphors for masking her autism, and I really liked that parallel.
Some things I think this book could have done without was the frequent traveling. I know it’s an adventure story, but there was something about the running, then the driving, then the running, then the falling, then the walking and running, then more falling, then more walking, then even more falling that felt a little too repetitive. I think transitions that required these verbs could have done with less show and more tell, and then shown me the good stuff, like the battles and the stabbing! I also tended to start spacing during the inner monologue and description bits, which is totally normal for me, but what isn’t normal was my skimming during bits of dialogue because there was too much description between lines of conversation. I am too much a completionist to do that, but I actually found myself doing this because I couldn’t bring myself to focus otherwise (my ADHD brain).
In the end, I felt a cliffhanger type ending coming based on how much was left unresolved when I had so few pages left, but it wasn’t a terrible cliffhanger, and I’m looking forward to the sequel. I did ultimately not fully grasp the explanation of what a changeling is at the end. During most of the story I was asking, “but what is a changeling?” And there was no real attempt at an explanation other than, “not human and not fairy,” but then there’s an answer at the end that implies the original thought is wrong, but I still felt like there was no original answer and the final answer was also confusing.
I definitely want to rate this between 3-4 stars.
Some things I think this book could have done without was the frequent traveling. I know it’s an adventure story, but there was something about the running, then the driving, then the running, then the falling, then the walking and running, then more falling, then more walking, then even more falling that felt a little too repetitive. I think transitions that required these verbs could have done with less show and more tell, and then shown me the good stuff, like the battles and the stabbing! I also tended to start spacing during the inner monologue and description bits, which is totally normal for me, but what isn’t normal was my skimming during bits of dialogue because there was too much description between lines of conversation. I am too much a completionist to do that, but I actually found myself doing this because I couldn’t bring myself to focus otherwise (my ADHD brain).
In the end, I felt a cliffhanger type ending coming based on how much was left unresolved when I had so few pages left, but it wasn’t a terrible cliffhanger, and I’m looking forward to the sequel. I did ultimately not fully grasp the explanation of what a changeling is at the end. During most of the story I was asking, “but what is a changeling?” And there was no real attempt at an explanation other than, “not human and not fairy,” but then there’s an answer at the end that implies the original thought is wrong, but I still felt like there was no original answer and the final answer was also confusing.
I definitely want to rate this between 3-4 stars.