Hrm. A hundred pages into this novel, I had to come back here to see if my friend's review was really is as glowing as I remembered it to be. I'm baffled.

I'm struggling to keep interested in this book. This is a poorly-explained world, where magical and social elements are introduced in passing, but not fleshed out; the book itself is structured with a bizarrely flip-flopping POV, reminiscent of a soap opera, which changes so frequently as to prevent me from getting interesting in either of the More...

Fantasy. Something's rotten in Melusine and the Virtu, a collection of spells that protects the city's wizards, has been destroyed, sending the city into disorder. The story's told by two narrators: Felix -- wizard, drama queen, perpetual victim -- and Mildmay -- thief for hire, regular guy, and a hundred times less whiny than Felix. I hated Felix. I spent most of the book wishing he'd shut up and go away. He's a big wet blanket, cowardly and useless, and would be perfectly at home in a bad piec More...

I picked this book up on a recommendation from one of my favorite authors - Charlaine Harris - and I wasn't disappointed. Sarah Monette does a marvelous job pulling us into this new world. For instance, if the names she gives to months sound oddly familiar, it's because they are borrowed from the French Revolution's republican calendar system. This deft touch, in addition to many other captivating details, creates an alternate universe with a historical past that is both familiar and exotic. Hal More...

Mélusine is a fabulous debut fantasy novel, about a pair of unlikely heroes in a richly imagined world. Felix Harrowgate is a wizard of the Mirador, powerful and respected until a long-held secret is divulged which drives him back to his evil master, Malkar, and into insanity. Meanwhile, the thief Mildmay the Fox is drawn into intrigue when he meets Ginevra, a beautiful shopgirl who wants him to steal back some items from her former lover. Eventually, the separate stories of Felix and Mildmay co More...

While reading this book, I started to think of it as a whimsical runner in a marathon. Sometimes it jogged, sometimes it sprinted, sometimes it stopped to chase butterflies in the field, but surprisingly, it never fell on its face, and when it frolicked gaily (fear my puniness) across the finish line, it still managed to look fabulous, so it gets four stars.

Metaphors aside, I know this book is part of a four-book series, but I agree with others reviewers on this site in that it felt like a lot o More...

I really liked this book (so much so that I picked up the second book the day after I finished the first one).

As with any book that has constantly alternating points of view, I found it distracting at first but eventually I was able to settle into it. (It's a personal preference. It works for some people and not for others). The world is an interesting place, though I think the nonstandard measurement of time is unnecessary and irritating.

I did not guess the connection between Mildmay and Feli More...

Read while traveling. I didn't have a good reading environment for enjoying this until midway through, and then I was hooked. I need to reread the first half at least, though. I have a feeling I missed some important details.

...

Okay, I've reread enough to write a coherent review.

Mélusine was a much more intense, disturbing, and violent book than I was prepared for, and so reading it was in some places extremely disturbing. But if you don't get squicked by rape, torture, mindfucks, or insanity, t More...

Dark, tortured fantasy fans, rejoice! Sarah Monette is here for you with a stellar new world, a wonderfully academic vision of magic (lots of different schools of thought, all of which think the others are nuts), obnoxious aristocrats, thieves, and two compelling protagonists who are destined to have a long, volatile, satisfying relationship.

Felix Harrowgate was plucked from the slums by Malkar, a powerful wizard (and an incredible bastard) and trained to pass as an aristocrat. On the night his More...

Felix is possessed and weepy while Mildmay plays the Artful Dodger and they are on the run while very bad things are happening in... whatever the name of this book's world is.

The fact that I just finished this and can't remember what Monette called her world is one of the problems I had with the book -- I didn't get enough of a sense of place, here, and was never clear on the power structure of the society. I was never sure who the main characters were running from. Or to, for that matter.

Anoth More...

This review seems full of nothing but criticism, so I'll frame it by saying that I didn't hate it, I actually enjoyed it, though you might not figure out why. Monette's involvement in recent blog affairs, plus her online present and most peeps in my environs feeling they have to read this book, made me hesitant to list it at all.

Lots of the genre-usual invented names right from the start, perhaps not overly much compared to other fantasy books, but still more than I think necessary, ever. The sp More...

Is it possible to admire a book and yet not like it very much? I greatly appreciated the invented world of Melusine and was fascinated with the main characters and yet found the book flawed in a number of ways. This is a world rich with invention: an underworld like Dicken's London full of thieves, pimps, prostitutes, and murderers, a ruling class of wizards, labyrinthine streets and dark alleys, many lands of different cultures, a sense of history, and ingenious names.

I appreciated the differe More...

Hoo boy what a delicious web of intrigue...

I am a bit sad, though. I rather liked mad-Felix...

Here's some stuff I wrote while I was still reading:
The prologue is interesting. It's almost like meaningful nonsense at first. Granted, it took a couple of false starts, but once you get in the rhythm of things, it makes perfect sense. Like reading a cypher. At first, you need to keep referring back to the key, but eventually, you'll be fluent in it.

But seriously. Holy shit. HOLY SHIT. o_o
Felix. He suf More...

First of all, trigger warnings for the book: every form of abuse imaginable, both during the story and in the past, toward both adults and children. Just about the only form that isn't here is parental abuse, though there is parental neglect. If you're even a little nervous about this fact, don't read this book.

I'm amazed at this book, I must say. It's a beautifully done deconstruction of GRRM-type fantasy; Sarah Monette takes what are commonly found in high fantasy novels (tortured pasts, whor More...

This review should probably have accompanied a 5 star rating but it does not, intentionally so.

Had this been an entertainment-only attempt, I could write line after line with praises about the clever plotting, the fine, elegant writing, the accurate characterization, the originality of the setting, etc. etc. etc. This IS a good book, after all, a quality fantasy you might want to cherish (and read only when you are in the right mood: to enjoy it you need more than the standard attention).

Problem More...

SlashReaders: My only two complaints were, I think I would've liked a little more leading into Felix before he kind of loses it. The back of the book does into him thinking he's got away blah blah blah, anyway I don't really get any sense of that in the very beginning before he goes back. It just kind of happens. However, that's not really a must just more me and I can live without it. ;)

My biggest problem with the book was the time measurements that are used. Are not explained, save for one blu More...

I'm not sure how I feel about this one. I've picked this book up a couple of times and dropped it because I found it boring. Well, I made it all the way through and I've got to admit, a lot of it was a bit boring.

I found the plot to be rather unbalanced, the world-building shaky in parts, the characters somewhat cookie-cutter in nature, and I really, really would have liked a first book to suck me in and explain this world before Felix's sanity was lost. I mean, don't get me wrong, this was not

More...

I quite liked this book! And really feel a bit like I shouldn't have. It's not a nice story, in fact vast tracks of plot evolve around abuse and how much utter hell the characters can go through. From minor misunderstandings between characters to violent rape to scarring mental breakdowns to character death to everyone being dicks to everyone else, this book has it all. And despite the breadth of terrible things done to characters, none of it was played off as meaningless or disregarded. The cha More...

I was recommended this book by a friend, who admitted up front that it used some strange terms (molly = gay, janus = bisexual, just for example), and some of the names are really out there. However, we both enjoyed books with a suffering protagonist, and she said this had the motherload. She seriously was not kidding.

One thing I did not realize when I started this book was that it was the first in a series of four. I was pleasantly surprised to find the next two books at the library after I'd re More...

This book reminded me of picking at a scab, watching it bleed with horrified fascination, and then feeling compelled to pick at it further, until your fingers are bloody and you’ve got a gaping wound. There’s so much pain and fear and blind horror and regression. There’s a pervasive sense of doom as well, an embedded instinctive knowledge that seems to direct the book toward only dark places with no hope or redemption in sight.

Melusine is a bit predictable at certain points – the red hair especi More...

After reading a very mixed bag of reviews, I've come to the conclusion that Melusine (and the whole Doctrine of Labyrinths) are books you either love or hate, with very little room in the middle. I confess I personally tend towards the former. The terminology is difficult to grapple with at first, because the style of narration leaves little room for explanation of the plethora of colloquialisms peppered throughout the novel. However, if you bear with it, it does become much easier to understand More...

Somewhere between 3.5 and 4 stars, really. Although this book was fascinating in its world, characters, and compulsive plot, I really am of two minds about it. One the one hand I read it in two days and today literally have done nothing but read until I finished it, and I'm desperate to read the next one (which is cussedly out of print...but I have ways.) On the other hand, while I was reading I was annoyed by a few things to do with the story-telling. For one this, and this may just be me, I wa More...

I just finished this book and I am not really sure I liked it. At the conclusion I was not sure what was relevent and what was not. Unlike most readers, I really like Felix. His madness was very well written. He was the most pathetic character I recall reading about in a long time. He was very human. I loved Mildmay, of course. I was suprised her is the younger of the two.

The thing that I missed most was the magic. This is the most magicless book on wizards I have ever read. I kept reading becau More...

I started off really enjoying Melusine. Appealing epic-fantasy setting; dueling magicians; a labyrinthine castle - and about half the major characters are gay, and it's not a big deal. All good ingredients. The plot's first main conflict - the brutal assault upon and captivity of Felix, a main character - is wrenching and original. And the interplay between the voices of the two narrators, the talented thief Mildmay and the disgraced wizard Felix, works well.

But after awhile I got bored. There a More...

It takes great determination and endurance to complete a novel and most every writer should be commended for that, Sarah Monette included. Yet I had a very hard time finishing this novel.

When you dislike a character so much, and they are a main part of the story and plot, that rather spoiled it for me. I felt the author really tried hard to present a detailed character one can visualize but I found Felix without true depth. I am also a hard stickler of the rule, if you don't personally know or More...

Phew. *flaps hand weakly* What they said...

I was intrigued by what Hirondelle and Emmaco said about this/The Virtu, and knew that I was likely to feel frustrated by the fascinating but insufficiently presented world's magic system(s), history and politics. Which I did!

I also expected to like Mildmay more than Felix, based on Hirondelle's comments, and that was certainly the case, but more because I started to feel the anguish heaped on him was overdone by about page 20 than because he was arrog More...

This is a book that requires a fair investment of time and energy: not only is it a dense, often draining read, but it doesn't exactly end. And if you've become attached to the characters, as I did, you will need to read more in the series or feel you've only heard a small portion of their story. I simultaneously dread and can't wait to start the next book, The Virtu.

Melusine has two narrators, who seemingly couldn't be more different. Felix is an arrogant, highly placed wizard; Mildmay is a fou More...

It was hundreds of times better than I thought it would be. I have, over the years, become more than a bit demanding where fantasy is concerned. Fantasy books need to be something more than a rehashing of traditional fantasy tropes. This was it -- with bells on. Beautifully written, inventive, original, gritty -- truly gritty! I don't recommend it if you're of a delicate disposition, or under 16. And it moved me. It is literally years since I last felt moved (close to tears) by a book. If I reme More...

So Felix is a wizard who’s driven mad when his evil master uses him to destroy a powerful magical thingy. Mildmay is a thief/assassin who gets hired by another wizard to track down Felix, for complicated and magical reasons. When Felix and Mildmay finally meet up they discover (view spoiler)[they’re long-lost brothers (hide spoiler)]. Mildmay eventually ends up manhandling the crazy Felix halfway across the world to find a cure for him.

I wasn’t impressed with the way the characters were introduced. We don’t get a firm grip on More...

What an interesting and impressive book. Not perfect, but impressive in several ways.

This book does a great job of giving life to the experience of madness, and also the trials of having to take care of a madman. Neither experience is any fun, of course, and although it's tempting to pity both the patient and the caretaker and admire them for their noble suffering, it's also important to remember that neither one of them is going to be perfect. I loved the way that Monette presented both the pr More...