The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home by Catherynne M. Valente

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Quite by accident, September has been crowned as Queen of Fairyland – but she inherits a Kingdom in chaos. The magic of a Dodo’s egg has brought every King, Queen, or Marquess of Fairyland back to life, each with a fair and good claim on the throne, each with their own schemes and plots and horrible, hilarious, hungry histories. In order to make sense of it all, and to save their friend from a job she doesn’t want, A-Through-L and Saturday devise a Royal Race, a Monarckical Marathon, in which every outlandish would-be ruler of Fairyland will chase the Stoat of Arms across the whole of the nation – and the first to seize the poor beast will seize the crown.

A perfect ending to this magical series! I am, as always, enchanted with Valente’s writing style, and surprised by the plot twists, and utterly in love with every character!

I don’t understand why the GoodReads description says “A-Through-L and Saturday devise a Royal Race… in which every outlandish would-be ruler of Fairyland will chase the Stoat of Arms across the whole of the nation…”
That’s completely opposite to what actually happens in the book! No one chases the Stoat of Arms, and it is NOT A-L or Saturday who think up the race. That makes no sense. Who wrote this description?

One of the best things, of course, is all the little bits of wisdom and philosophy peppered through the story. There’s a sweet pathos and melancholy through all the series. Continue reading →