![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
When seventeen-year-old Valerie Russell runs away to New York City, she's trying to escape a life that has utterly betrayed her. Sporting a new identity, she takes up with a gang of squatters who live in the city's labyrinthine subway system.
But there's something eerily beguiling about Val's new friends. Impulsive Lolli talks of monsters in the subway tunnels they call home and of a powder that makes shadows dance around her. Severe Luis claims he can make deals with creatures no one else can see. And then there's Luis's brother, Dave, who makes the mistake of letting Val tag along as he makes a delivery to a woman who has goat hooves instead of feet.
When a bewildered Val allows Lolli to talk her into tracking down the hidden lair of the creature for whom Luis and Dave have been working, Val finds herself bound into service by a troll named Ravus. He is as hideous as he is honourable, and as Val grows to know him, she finds herself torn between affection for him - and fear of what her new friends are becoming because of him.
I continue to enjoy Holly Black's gift for imagery (which this book gives full rein to) but whilst there is more story to this book than there was to Tithe, it does suffer from the same character relationship problems and I think this is really down to Black putting so much effort into her main character of Val that the side characters remain nothing more than ciphers when they should be rich and satisfying. Take Luis for example, he should be fascinating given that he has Sight, has already lost one eye to a faerie, clearly mistrusts them and yet bound himself to serve a troll in exchange for his brother's life. In practice however, he is never more than a checklist of attributes, which prevents him from leaping off the page. Ditto Ravus (who reminded me far too much of Roiben in Tithe but with longer teeth, ditto Lolli (who was too irritatingly shallow to ever be believable) and ditto Dave and Mabry. In the latter two cases, this really affected my enjoyment of the story because if they're the central bad guys, they need to have more of a motivation than a desire to shag Lolli senseless (in the case of Dave) and to gain revenge on Ravus (in the case of Mabry).
I've also noticed that for a second time, Black uses a somewhat improbably set-up to kick-start the heroine's adventure. In the case of Tithe, this was an attack on the main character's mother (which was never dark enough to be frightening or justify the sudden move). In the case of Valient, it's the main character's sudden and somewhat soapy discovery that her mum is having it off with her boyfriend. Whilst I have no doubt that there are mothers who like to shag their teenage daughter's boyfriend (afterall, I've read the headlines of supermarket magazines), this is so briskly dealt with and so totally lacking in credibility, that I found myself wishing that Black had found a less contrived way of sending Val running off into the city.
Valiant is a much darker book than Tithe. There is particular reference to drug-taking, with Val, Dave and Lolli essentially becoming hooked on a kind of powdered magic called Never, which temporarily gives them the power of faeries. Black does well in showing Val's increased dependency on the effects of the drug and showing the effects of withdrawal.. However, she never really gives Val a good reason for taking it in the first place and whilst she takes care to establish a set of rules for taking Never (including never more than once a day for two days in a row), she is quick to disregard the same - again, without offering an explanation or justification. Valiant also has a sex scene (straight), which is perfunctory, in-keeping with the subject matter and perversely chaste (a little like a fade out to a 1930s movie) and the dialogue is peppered with 'fucks' (although again, this is not gratuitous and gives the text some much-needed credibility).
The final critical issue with the book is with the lack of credibility of the central romance. I had similar concerns with Tithe but at least there was sufficient interaction between the characters to live with it. In Valiant, there simply isn't. Black is going for a Beauty and the Beast vibe but they don't have enough page time to be credible. In fact, in many ways I think it would have been more believable to have their relationship grow into a firm inter-species friendship than some great love story.
The Verdict:
A more satisfying read than Tithe in terms of the underlying story, the continued poor characterisation means that this is a faery tale that's too lacking in credibility to be really enjoyable.
When seventeen-year-old Valerie Russell runs away to New York City, she's trying to escape a life that has utterly betrayed her. Sporting a new identity, she takes up with a gang of squatters who live in the city's labyrinthine subway system.
But there's something eerily beguiling about Val's new friends. Impulsive Lolli talks of monsters in the subway tunnels they call home and of a powder that makes shadows dance around her. Severe Luis claims he can make deals with creatures no one else can see. And then there's Luis's brother, Dave, who makes the mistake of letting Val tag along as he makes a delivery to a woman who has goat hooves instead of feet.
When a bewildered Val allows Lolli to talk her into tracking down the hidden lair of the creature for whom Luis and Dave have been working, Val finds herself bound into service by a troll named Ravus. He is as hideous as he is honourable, and as Val grows to know him, she finds herself torn between affection for him - and fear of what her new friends are becoming because of him.
I continue to enjoy Holly Black's gift for imagery (which this book gives full rein to) but whilst there is more story to this book than there was to Tithe, it does suffer from the same character relationship problems and I think this is really down to Black putting so much effort into her main character of Val that the side characters remain nothing more than ciphers when they should be rich and satisfying. Take Luis for example, he should be fascinating given that he has Sight, has already lost one eye to a faerie, clearly mistrusts them and yet bound himself to serve a troll in exchange for his brother's life. In practice however, he is never more than a checklist of attributes, which prevents him from leaping off the page. Ditto Ravus (who reminded me far too much of Roiben in Tithe but with longer teeth, ditto Lolli (who was too irritatingly shallow to ever be believable) and ditto Dave and Mabry. In the latter two cases, this really affected my enjoyment of the story because if they're the central bad guys, they need to have more of a motivation than a desire to shag Lolli senseless (in the case of Dave) and to gain revenge on Ravus (in the case of Mabry).
I've also noticed that for a second time, Black uses a somewhat improbably set-up to kick-start the heroine's adventure. In the case of Tithe, this was an attack on the main character's mother (which was never dark enough to be frightening or justify the sudden move). In the case of Valient, it's the main character's sudden and somewhat soapy discovery that her mum is having it off with her boyfriend. Whilst I have no doubt that there are mothers who like to shag their teenage daughter's boyfriend (afterall, I've read the headlines of supermarket magazines), this is so briskly dealt with and so totally lacking in credibility, that I found myself wishing that Black had found a less contrived way of sending Val running off into the city.
Valiant is a much darker book than Tithe. There is particular reference to drug-taking, with Val, Dave and Lolli essentially becoming hooked on a kind of powdered magic called Never, which temporarily gives them the power of faeries. Black does well in showing Val's increased dependency on the effects of the drug and showing the effects of withdrawal.. However, she never really gives Val a good reason for taking it in the first place and whilst she takes care to establish a set of rules for taking Never (including never more than once a day for two days in a row), she is quick to disregard the same - again, without offering an explanation or justification. Valiant also has a sex scene (straight), which is perfunctory, in-keeping with the subject matter and perversely chaste (a little like a fade out to a 1930s movie) and the dialogue is peppered with 'fucks' (although again, this is not gratuitous and gives the text some much-needed credibility).
The final critical issue with the book is with the lack of credibility of the central romance. I had similar concerns with Tithe but at least there was sufficient interaction between the characters to live with it. In Valiant, there simply isn't. Black is going for a Beauty and the Beast vibe but they don't have enough page time to be credible. In fact, in many ways I think it would have been more believable to have their relationship grow into a firm inter-species friendship than some great love story.
The Verdict:
A more satisfying read than Tithe in terms of the underlying story, the continued poor characterisation means that this is a faery tale that's too lacking in credibility to be really enjoyable.
