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Oct 19, 2010

Moira added it

de Lint has come up with a really interesting background for the story, about a kind of war between the Native American spirits and the Celtic fae immigrants. This could be a neat way to explore the appropriation that especially occurs in genre fiction all the time which results in a lot of Celtic-driven urban fantasy. Unfortunately, it looks like (haven't finished it yet) the main focus is going to be on whether or not the human characters can find lasting luuuuuuuv, and....that's not really ve More...

6 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 29, 2010

Anne rated it:

This book disappointed me. I have enjoyed other books by the author and in this series. I loved the Onion Girl, and waited eagerly for its sequel. But I thought the plot of Widdershins was too fragmented. DeLint introduced too many new characters, used too many different points of view and tried to tell too many stories at the same time.

Half a dozen new characters were introduced, most of whom got point-of-view chapters, and just as many minor characters from previous books mad More...

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Sep 29, 2010

Ambertronic rated it:

Widdershins is the continuation of where The Onion Girl left off. While technically it can be viewed as a sequel (some would argue that, since Spirits in the Wires came out after Onion Girl and before Widdershins), again de Lint creates a novel that can stand alone if you hadn't read anything of his prior. You open this book and it immediately takes off after a few fill-you-in pages. So now we know how Jilly Coppercorn came to be, but what happens now? How does she cope with her physical l More...

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Sep 29, 2010

Linda rated it:

Charles deLint lives in a weird, wonderful world peopled by Celtic fae and Native American mythic figures. Every time I read one of his books, I live there too for a while. The book explores many types of relationships between friends, lovers and family. It also touches on the effects of abuse and the methods of overcoming it. All these serious themes are wrapped in an engaging story of bogans, faerie courts, Crow girls, music and love. I find myself excited every time I see a new deLint book in More...

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Sep 29, 2010

Heather rated it:

I love Charles de Lint. He was the first urban fantasy writer I encountered, and he remains the best. I like that he has created a cast of characters that he truly seems to love and enjoy hanging out with. And I LOVE that he's finally exploring Jilly and Geordie as a viable couple. The intersection of European myth and Native-American myth continues to be an interesting place upon which to stand in de Lint's capable hands. Very deep, though. Don't expect this to be a light read.

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2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 25, 2011

Kim rated it:

I picked this book randomly off the shelf never having read - or even heard of - de Lint's other books, so possibly I'm not as invested in these characters as others are, but even with my relative ignorance I found the book universe easy enough to follow, and like. The dream-like world that de Lint establishes in the book is a pleasure to read about, but I'll admit that the constantly changing points of view made the book a little frenetic, and to be honest I felt the book did drag a bit.
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Feb 25, 2011

Scarlet rated it:

I've only read one other de Lint book, The Onion Girl, and this was basically a sequel so it was easy to figure out what was happening. The pacing was very odd; when I got to the climax of the book, I was baffled that I was still listening to part 17 of 19 (each part being a little over an hour long). And it got a little preachy at the end, with every character basically hammering home the author's opinions on how we're meant to leave the world a better place than when we came into it, how we ne More...

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Jan 12, 2011

Lis rated it:

For anyone who's been reading de Lint's Newford stories—this is Jilly and Geordie's story. They've been the best of friends, closer than friends, since their college days, and pretty much continuously, one of them has always been involved with someone else—not that that's ever worked out for either of them in the long run. But even they couldn't keep that up forever.

The story within which they finally get appropriately whacked with two-by-fours concerns the efforts of one of the old na More...

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Sep 29, 2010

Aeron rated it:

I'll confess: I just like Charles de Lint. The fictional world he's creating totally speaks to me. The fiddles, fairies, bars, and Native American spirits. This may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it is fantasy at its funnest.

The story is largely about Jilly, an artist who is having trouble recovering from a car accident. It turns out there's some stuff going on in her spirit - dealing with her past - that requires her to deal with it before she can become healed physically. But t More...

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Apr 13, 2011

Kaylee rated it:

I love this book. It is about a girl named Jilly Coppercorn whose past demons manifest themselves in a magical world you can only visit in your dreams. You are up to your knees in folklore the minute you step into the book. Somehow De Lint brings myths from various culture to life in a way that is believablt and different from everything I have read from both this author and others. I have read several other books that center around Jilly, but this one really takes you deep in her past and bring More...

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Jan 09, 2012

Nicholas rated it:

Two upfront disclaimers: One, I am not a fan of urban fantasy. I think it's a real kitschy genre and I've never been able to take it seriously. Two, I never read any of the previous books in this series. So, hey, if this is your thing and you've been following these characters for a long time, my review is going to be meaningless to you.

Aside from those things, I just thought there were a number of problems. de Lint writes really poorly. There's nothing subtle in the narration at al More...

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May 21, 2011

Jessie (Ageless Pages Reviews) rated it:

Charming and delightful are two adjectives easily used to describe Widdershins by the always excellent Charles de Lint. That is not to say it is without darker moments, full of controversial and disturbing contents. The best thing about de Lint is that he handles such subject matter delicately; enough to let you know why and how someone has/is suffering but not enough to make you uncomfortable or nauseous.
Jilly Coppercorn returns, with her usual gang of misfits and wonders of humankind. An More...

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Sep 29, 2010

Phoenixfalls rated it:

This is the closest de Lint has come to writing a sequel to any of his Newford novels; it takes place two years after the events in The Onion Girl and finishes Jilly's story. Still, it isn't absolutely necessary to have read The Onion Girl first; de Lint does a decent job of catching new readers up.

As with The Onion Girl, the thing that takes me the most by surprise is that the returning characters hold less interest than the new characters for me. I was involved with Lizzie from her v More...

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Jan 01, 2011

Surreysmum rated it:

Probably more a 3.5 than a 3 - I did enjoy this one quite a bit, the more so since it had been a while since I'd indulged in any fantasy, and I was leery of waltzing into the middle of an established series and an established "world". However, as advertised, it was relatively easy to read as a stand-alone, though the battery of new characters at the beginning was a bit daunting. I was also a bit leery of what I saw as a potentially over-didactic tone when a supernatural race clearly an More...

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Sep 29, 2010

Megan rated it:

Widdershins is a work of urban fantasy by Charles DeLint. Like many of DeLint's best books, it is set in the fictional big city of Newford, where the boundaries between our world and the "underworld" (call it Faerie, Neverland, whatever) is especially thin. Many of his stories and novels have featured the main characters here, Jilly Coppercorn and Geordie Riddell. Jilly is an artist who was in a crippling accident and can no longer walk easily or paint, but who has always had a special More...

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Sep 29, 2010

Jamieson rated it:

wid·der·shins (w d r-sh nz ) or with·er·shins (w th -)adv.

In a contrary or counterclockwise direction: “The coracle whirled round, clockwise, then widdershins” (Anthony Bailey).

What would you do for love? Would you write a sonnet? Would you climb mountains for it? Would you battle for it? What about traveling to an alternate universe inside of the woman that you love, to battle beings from her past? This is just what Geordie Riddell has to do to save the More...

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Sep 29, 2010

Kimberly rated it:

I'm glad that I read The Onion Girl first because Widdershins is the completion of one of the main story lines from Onion Girl. However it encompasses new characters and new stories into the full circle completion of the familiar.
That being said, de Lint weaves an irresistible magic into his story telling--I get the feeling he's just as interested to read the story as he is to write it. And he discovers what happens along with the readers. He uses both Native American and fairy charac More...

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Sep 29, 2010

Rachel rated it:

Ow. Did I say Onion Girl (the book to which this is a sequel) was painful? This was an order of magnitude more painful to read and experience. But I thought it was a better book, and truer to the Newford canon.

In this one, a fiddler accidentally makes some enemies among a bunch of trouble-making boggans. Unfortunately, they're part of a larger crisis in the supernatural world, and precipitate a war between the native spirits and the European fairies. When Lizzie, the fiddler, ge More...

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Sep 29, 2010

AJ rated it:

Jilly Coppercorn is my all time favorite literary fictional character. Anne of Green Gables and Holden Caulfield don't even come close.

She's appeared in numerous short stories as both protagonist and supporting character and did a lot of supporting work in novels, but she didn't get her own book until The Onion Girl. We got glimpses of her broken life before this, but this finally told the whole story. It wasn't pretty.

One of the reasons de Lint said he waited so long More...

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Sep 29, 2010

Luanne rated it:

This was my first introduction to de Lint and his Newford books. Though I could tell some of the characters had appeared in previous books and I was supposed to have recognized that, this didn't detract from my understanding of the plot or enjoyment of the novel. The characters were well drawn and the plot moved at a good clip. De Lint adopts a somewhat minimalist prose but still manages to convey a magical sort of atmosphere, even in gritty urban settings. I wish I could do this. I wish I More...

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Sep 29, 2010

Happydog rated it:

After the letdown of "Spirits in the Wires," this book was a good comeback. The main characters are well-drawn and interesting, but of course the central characters are ones that DeLint has been using from the beginning. The peripheral characters, though, particularly the mortal female characters, tend to get blurry. This isn't helped by the fact that DeLint has a lot going on here plotwise. He's trying to tie up Geordie and Jilly, which is one of his main points. But as a result I sta More...

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Sep 29, 2010

Aaron rated it:

This is a classic Charles de Lint book, with all the good and bad that implies. It's almost as if he wanted to write a book that gave you extra big doses of every theme and trope he has worked in, such as: urbanized faeries, Native American animal people, child abuse, bohemians, Celtic music, loss, redemption, sappy romance. It's all there, bigger, badder, bolder, sappier, magicallier, past-traumaier, and referencing-previous-storiesier than ever. If you wanted to write a novel in the style More...

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Sep 29, 2010

Fawn rated it:

I'm afraid I didn't read the earlier books in the series, but had been recommended this one as a good example of a novel from several POV's. Although I like the world that Charles de Lint has built, I felt this book dragged. He could have trimmed 200 pages of inner dialogue and repetitive morality narrative and it would have been a tighter and more enjoyable read. The plot was engaging, if a bit all over the place, but by midway through the book, I became quite tired of hearing characters talk a More...

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Nov 11, 2011

Amblingbooks.com marked it as to-read

"De Lint weaves the individual characters' stories into a tight-knit whole, accompanied by music, love, pugnacity, frustration, and healing. Many of his faithful readers see the people he has created as kin they want to keep up with. Walk widdershins (i.e., counterclockwise) once and you may, too."-Booklist (starred review)

Listen to Widdershins on your smartphone.

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Sep 29, 2010

Emily rated it:

Charles de Lint cleverly combines smultiple folkloric traditions. His explanation is that when Europeans migrated to America, their fairy folk came along in the boats and took up residence in the new world. Since the native American spirits were already here, it makes for a somewhat crowded "between" world where the various fairy/spirit types live. This crowdedness moves the book's plot.

I was hooked by this story, really wanting to see how the protagonists, helpless wi More...

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Apr 16, 2011

Ghoule rated it:

J'ai essayé d'aimer ce livre. D'embarquer. De continuer à lire ce texte. Je suis convaincu que c'est bon, bien écrit et intéressant. Malheureusement, je n'ai pas réussi à suivre le train. L'accroche, le personnage principal, le premier incident et le premier allié m'ont laissés de glace. La magie n'opérant pas, j'ai décidé de donner le livre à quelqu'un qui pourrait lui faire honneur. Des intéressés? :-)

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Sep 29, 2010

Kirstin rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Oct 16, 2010

Ash rated it:

This is the first Charles De Lint book I've read and I really enjoyed it. Some parts of the story dragged on and some Characters were a little unnecessary, but I LOVED Jilly! I like when a writer can make me question if a fairy world could exist and De Lint did that for me. I like Fairies and Folk lore so I enjoyed reading Widdershins.

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Sep 29, 2010

Phillip rated it:

This is, for the most part, a delightful blend of old world fairies and new world spirits as their social frictions bleed over into the world of mortals, who are dealing with their own set of personal demons. The folklore is rich and the characters are memorable. In the long run, what we have here is a traditional battle between good and evil handled with untraditional results.

As a warning, some of the scenes were troubling for me and I recommend this book for mature readers. As u More...

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Sep 29, 2010

Kirsten rated it:

I haven't read any Charles de Lint in a while, and this was a real treat! I would say it's accessible to folks who haven't read any of his other Newford novels or short stories, but the characters probably have more interest and resonance if you've known them longer. There are really two interconnected storylines here: One storyline follows Jilly Coppercorn as she struggles to work and enjoy life the way she did before the events in The Onion Girl. The other storyline involves escalating conflic More...

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