The Plaid Pladd

While out of town, I brought along, among other things, Janni Lee Simner’s Bones of Faerie.

Using the currently popular Twilightesque cover art style of "something vague on black"

Naturally, I chose this for the cover art. I’m ashamed to admit it, but the Twilight art style works on me. Part of me thinks half the reason for Twilight‘s popularity is its cover art (despite the fact that it is blatant false advertising).

So maybe my selection process (judging a book by its cover) was the one thing traditional librarian archetypes are urging us NEVER to do (that, and to use our library voices), so I shouldn’t have expected too much. I will say this, the premise of the book was pretty baller. There aren’t nearly enough stories about killer trees in this world. I think the main problem with this book is that I felt like I was reading a sequel to a much better book that I’d rather be reading instead. Here’s the sitch:

Liza lives with her abusive father in a town where any child perceived to have magic is abandon in the woods to be eaten by wild animals. Is this 13th century Europe, you ask? NO! It’s the FUTURE! And the world is just barely recovering from a war with EARTH MAGIC FAIRY ELVES (or something) who came through the St. Louis Arch and started sending plants to take root IN YOUR SKIN.

Gateway to the West? Or Gateway to ELVEN TREE DOOM

However, none of that happens in the story. Sure, occasionally the trees try to eat her, and the corn they harvest moans and screams when they pick it, but for the most part, the world is in recovery. Liza discovers that she, like most people born after the war, has magic, and so, rather than face her father’s wrath, she runs away from home with her trusty werewolf friend and eventually embarks on a quest to save her missing mother, who has fled to a radioactive battleground to be all mopey about her ex-bf.

I’m giving this book an “okay, but not great”. The writing was about average, and the moral of the story is that Elves Are People Too and We’ll All To Blame. Maybe I just didn’t feel enough empathy for the characters, but I kept wanting to rewind about 20 years and see some trees totally pwn some commandos.

It'd be like that scene from the Wizard of Oz, but a million times more badass.