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Felicia's Reviews > Rosemary and Rue
Rosemary and Rue (October Daye, #1)
by Seanan McGuire (Goodreads Author)
by Seanan McGuire (Goodreads Author)
Felicia's review
bookshelves: vaginal-urban-fantasy, urban-paranormal
Dec 02, 2009
bookshelves: vaginal-urban-fantasy, urban-paranormal
Read in December, 2009
** spoiler alert **
This book had some great parts, and then something that bothered me, which I will say below.
This book had a GREAT setting and environment, I was engrossed in the mystery and, (although a bit exposition-y in sections) I was along for the ride the whole way and immersed in the mythology. It has no racy romance, so those who like Butcher, Green and Paul Wilson would be interested in this book/series. I definitely would pick up #2 in the series to see where it goes. Reminds me a bit of the Tim Pratt books, where I enjoyed #1 but LOVE LOVED #2 on.
SPOILER:
The only thing that bugged me about this book was that the main character has been trapped in a fish pond for like, 12 years from the top of the book, and the whole time I'm waiting for her to go and find her family, husband and daughter, or at least have that be a big story point later in the book, exploring what happened to those she loved while she was condemned to a life as a fish. It's set up in the prologue but doesn't happen in the book. As an aside it is mentioned that it didn't go well, her trying to contact her family, but I would have thought it would have been a DRIVING FORCE after she got loose. Maybe it's just me. I'm usually not so detailed, but if anyone else has read this chime in and call me crazy or whatever.
It feels like someone WROTE stuff for this story point, but then cut it out for space or for a future installment? I dunno. After I let my need for that plot idea go I really enjoyed the book, but for some reason I got hung up on it for the first 1/3 of the book.
Like I said, recommended to Butcher, Green, Paul Wilson and other fans of urban fantasy not littered with the oiled chests of hot, supernatural men :D
This book had a GREAT setting and environment, I was engrossed in the mystery and, (although a bit exposition-y in sections) I was along for the ride the whole way and immersed in the mythology. It has no racy romance, so those who like Butcher, Green and Paul Wilson would be interested in this book/series. I definitely would pick up #2 in the series to see where it goes. Reminds me a bit of the Tim Pratt books, where I enjoyed #1 but LOVE LOVED #2 on.
SPOILER:
The only thing that bugged me about this book was that the main character has been trapped in a fish pond for like, 12 years from the top of the book, and the whole time I'm waiting for her to go and find her family, husband and daughter, or at least have that be a big story point later in the book, exploring what happened to those she loved while she was condemned to a life as a fish. It's set up in the prologue but doesn't happen in the book. As an aside it is mentioned that it didn't go well, her trying to contact her family, but I would have thought it would have been a DRIVING FORCE after she got loose. Maybe it's just me. I'm usually not so detailed, but if anyone else has read this chime in and call me crazy or whatever.
It feels like someone WROTE stuff for this story point, but then cut it out for space or for a future installment? I dunno. After I let my need for that plot idea go I really enjoyed the book, but for some reason I got hung up on it for the first 1/3 of the book.
Like I said, recommended to Butcher, Green, Paul Wilson and other fans of urban fantasy not littered with the oiled chests of hot, supernatural men :D
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Comments (showing 1-11 of 11) (11 new)
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Donna wrote: "I can see where you're coming from on the whole family thing, but I got the sense that she felt like she didn't deserve them back. All her friends warned her that playing house with a human would..."
HA that's interesting, I do like that angle. And YES cat man was hot as punk. :D I wanna see more about that in book 2.
I'm w/ you on this one. The beginning is a bit of a patchwork mess. I'm hoping book 2 flows a little better.
It *is* a first novel.The lack of contact did bug me a bit but the explanation of it pretty much sorted it for me. Though apparently not completely, since I was expecting something enough to be fooled by the doppelganger! I agree with Donna that Toby is all "waugh don't deserve" - same thing as how she doesn't go back to her liege lord for ages because she's expecting him to be mad?
(Hell, reminds me of me a bit, expecting people to think the worst. And it did seem that they were pretty furious at her because she wouldn't explain WHY she vanished for fourteen years.)
I read this book right when it came out, having stumbled on the author's LJ account some time ago and loved it. I can totally see where you're coming from on the "WHY HAVE YOU NOT CALLED THEM??" angle, because I had some of the same moments. I really did enjoy the book though - there was sexual tension without porn (I'm looking at you, Laurel K.) and the melding of all the different mythologies. There's 3 books contracted right now and Seanan has something like 9 planned in her head, so I imagine she's holding some things back for later installments.
By the way, she linked to this review, which is how I found it - go you!
I just finished this book and I really wish I had liked it more. I didn't find October to be very likable. She did do a lot of self bashing and has no feeling of self worth. She just seemed to be going through the motions and it was kind of 'meh'.The lack of family contact didn't bother me too much because it was explained in the book that she did try to contact Cliff and that he wanted nothing to do with her. It also seemed that most fae/mortal relationships ended badly. I was annoyed with the whole shape doppelganger portion of the book though. It was never explained who sent the doppelganger, or did it just show up for no specific reason except to kill her? And it seemed a little pointless to bring the daughter into the story like that.
I do get that it is a first book and I do plan to read the second but I'm not in a hurry to get it. I am also hoping for an October/Tybalt hook up.
I found this author's site and loved all the free stuff she had posted (Vel rocks!!!), so I had really high hopes for this book. I had a hard time getting into it-- the beginning was very patchy and jumpy, and I couldn't understand how she didn't fight to be with her daughter. I also found it hard to like a character with such incredibly low self worth, but by the end I got the feeling that Seanan was giving October room to grow.I'll check out the next book-- this author has potential oozing out of her pores-- I'm sure it will only get better!
These books get better as they go along. Now that I remember the first (which isn't my fave in the series) that does strike me as odd. But I liked Toby enough to push through it. Hopefully it will be addressed at some point.
If it helps you want to pick up the next book, the family thing comes up in book 5 of the series. You weren't wrong that it was supposed to come up, but, like a lot of things that are paying off in big ways, not for a while.
I had a similar issue - especially with the daughter. We learn that Toby herself went through hell as a young changeling. Why would she even want to subject a child of her own to that risk? And then not try and reach her at all?But yeah, once I suspended my disbelief I really loved the book and the melding of the urban fantasy elements. Off to glom the rest of the series...
I agree. Why would it be so imprtant to metion her havinga family if the family does not bring ANYTHING to the plot?
All her friends warned her that playing house with a human would end badly, but she ignored the possible consequences. So when she got cursed, her unsuspecting family also got hurt. Forcing herself back on them would cause a lot of short term drama and she'd also be risking screwing them over if she got killed or fish-ified again.
But part of that is probably me rationalizing, because I'm kind of hoping she hooks up with that cat guy who kept looking at her funny whenever she'd say that she knew he hated her.