Review:: Deathless, by Catherynne M. Valente

Title: Deathless

Author: Catherynne M. Valente

Series: Deathless, #1

Format: Hardcover

Rating: ★★★★☆

I really do love fairy tale books, but only if they're well done. The modern adaptation needs to add to the story, while still holding onto what makes a fairy tale a fairy tale. Catherynne M. Valente managed to do that and more, creating a rich and complex book that stayed true to its roots.

48HBC:: A Second Book Down

It's now 10:15pm, which means I've done 2 hours and 15 minutes so far today. A total of 13 hours and 15 minutes. I'm a bit frustrated that in all that time I've only read two books, but my focus is starting to get better now, so maybe my reading speed will catch up.

I have now finished Deathless, by Catherynne M. Valente, which was absolutely wonderful. Perhaps the thing I loved most about it was how she was able to write rich, complex prose that still managed to adhere to fairytale writing like repetition and archetypes. I'm not quite sure if it's a 4-star or a 5-star for me, so I'm guessing it's better to go with ★★★★☆. If it had been a five-star book, I feel like I'd be more assured about it.

Next, I'm going to be reading The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde:

This is another book I've been wanting to read for some time, so I'm pretty excited to read it. I've heard such wonderful things about it. Again, though, I know very little about it. I try to not know that much about a book before I read it. It just makes the reading experience so much better.

48HBC:: 9 Hours In

I need to eat soon, but I figure I can just throw some Trader Joe's GF waffles in the toaster and cut a grapefruit and call that food. Reading more sounds so much better than making real food... which if you know more than my taste in books, says a lot right now. (Cooking: my other beloved hobby.)

Focus is still really tough. I'm about 80 pages into Deathless right now, which is nothing close to my normal reading speed. I keep finding that I'll read a few paragraphs and then realize I have no idea what was said and have to go back until I find something familiar. I'm even just having trouble thinking. Super brain fog.

However, I am really enjoying Deathless in spite of my difficulties. The prose is gorgeous and I always appreciate books that involve folklore, but shift away from the stock standard Western European folklore. There are plenty of books that adopt it, especially British folklore. So dealing with something else is a breath of fresh air.

Not that I don't enjoy British folklore sometimes.

Anyway, I should get back to reading. I'll probably check in at the 11 hour mark, so at 1pm-ish.

48HBC:: One Down, ??? to Go?

I've now finished Ender's Shadow and the last 60 or so pages were actually pretty hard to plow through because my brain just wouldn't focus. I had a lot of feelings about it, but will probably put off writing most of my reviews until Sunday. Why? Well, my 48 hour period will end at 2am on Sunday, and I figured this means I would be able to cram in more reading time, and less blogging time.

However, while I won't be doing my reviews until later, I will give you my ratings.

Ender's Shadow? ★★★☆☆

I am now slightly over 7 hours in. Now that I've finished Ender's Shadow I'm going to read Deathless, by Catherynne M. Valente.

I've really wanted to read this one for a while, despite knowing pretty much nothing about it. (That makes sense. I promise. It's actually not that uncommon for me.) And well, the fact that the promotional blurb on the front is by Cory Doctorow, I'm even more excited to read it. I'm going to try to check in again at 11am, or 9 hours in. Wish me luck!