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Suimmary
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 shoots up a shimmery amber-colored powder that makes the shadows around her dance. Severe Luis claims he can make deals with creatures that no one else can see. And then there's Luis's brother, timid and sensitive Dave, who makes the mistake of letting Val tag along as he makes a delivery to a woman who turns out to have 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 dealing, Val finds herself bound into service by a troll named Ravus. He is as hideous as he is honorable. And as Val grows to know him, she finds herself torn between her affection for an honorable monster and her fear of what her new friends are becoming.
Bestselling author Holly Black follows her breakout debut, Tithe, with a rich, harrowing, and compulsively readable parable of betrayal, abuse, friendship, and love.
My Thoughts
Valiant (The Modern Faerie Tale, #2) by Holly Black
The book took off with a disturbing beginning and had me wondering what was going to happen. However, it suddenly slowed down like someone sprinted down a path and they’d lost all their energy. Valiant managed to be too detailed, but bland at the same time – that takes talent! (Sarcasm). There were also graphic scenes about things happening that I think could have gone without mentioning... I mean, other than those parts, the book was actually pretty interesting and a worthwhile read.
The characters in this book, were actually gripping. I felt like I got to know them. I don’t have much to say about Val, but I did find her pleasant to read about unlike Dave, who annoyed me from the start. I always found a reoccurring interest in Lolli and for some reason I always had a soft spot for Luis. Ravus, the troll that Val finds herself in debt to, actually wasn’t as appalling as I thought he might be.
I think if it weren’t for the decent characters and lure of the Faerie, that the book would have been horrible because the plot didn’t hold quite enough tension, nor did it seem fluent. I felt like the story line was going all over the place. The author had some really good ideas that just seemed to fall flat when they landed on the page.
Overall, my feelings stay mixed about this book, because there was so much that I liked about it, but it just didn’t completely satisfy me.
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