Inkspot Fancy

What's this about: Sunday Woodcutter is from a weird, magical family and, as so often happens, she falls in love and then weirdness and trouble follow. Or, if you want a more basic summary, it's like the princess and the frog story got thrown into overdrive.

Thoughts: There was a point somewhere in the second or third chapter of this book where I wondered, mostly out of bemusement, "did someone dare this author to reference every well-known European fairy tale in her story?"

As it turns out, that's exactly what happened. Huh.

There's both good and bad to this. On the one hand, the book contains slightly new or different spins on a number of those fairy tales, and they're blended so seamlessly into the narrative or world building that they're just fun little easter eggs. But at times, this dares-and-details method to forming a plot shows. Things get bloated, they happen for no apparent reason but to set up another reference, and the story staggers a bit under the weight of its own self-awareness.

I still haven't figured out if this helps or hurts the story on balance. Without the references and the clear plans for sequels, the cast could have been slimmed considerably with little to no impact on the plot, and I think some of the details of the plot would have made more sense. (Goose that lays the golden eggs? Sure, okay, fine, whatever).

Two of my biggest problems therefore stem from this. There are a LOT of character to keep track of, with a lot of details to remember about them, but a lot of them didn't really matter to the narrative. And in a lot of cases it was sort of hard to figure out until the end who you needed to remember better and who you could gloss. And then, the story managed a pretty good pace through most of the story, but at some point, things just start sort of flying at the reader, the pace feels rushed and forced, and at least a few things happened that left me thinking "bwuh?"

But without the fun of the easter eggs, the story turns into a really basic fairy tale type story. A well-written enough one, not a bad one, but nothing I haven't already read before. So even if everything else wasn't doing it, you could keep reading if only to see what gets worked in next. And as I said, some of them are genuinely well used and creatively implemented.

And while a lot of characters felt superfluous, the main ones were really strong, with their own voice and history, and I loved seeing a lot of their interactions. And I thought the relationship between the mains was really sweet, if a little sudden in time-honored fairy tale tradition. In fact, I'd dare say the characters are the real star of the story.

So, final verdict... I didn't love it as much as I wanted, but I didn't dislike it. I disliked *aspects* of it. But I enjoyed it enough that I will definitely be picking up book 2, Hero, at some point.