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Lately, I've really been in the mood for a subgenre of fantasy I think of as smart old-school fairytale YA.
Some examples:
+ Robin McKinley's Beauty, Rose Daughter, Spindle's End, Chalice, Deerskin (I also love her other books, but they aren't on this list because they're a different subgenre in my mind)
+ Summers at Castle Auburn
+ The Perilous Gard
+ Book of a Thousand Days
+ Lud-in-the-Mist
Some that aren't quite in this genre but have similar feels:
+ Wise Child and Juniper
+ Spinning Silver and Uprooted
I am currently reading The Hollow Kingdom, which I think belongs in the "similar feel" category, but I'm not sure if I'm going to like it yet.
Does anyone have recs along these lines?
Some things to take into consideration:
+ I don't like 97% of contemporary YA (say, anything written after about 2005), but I am very willing to read MG if it's well-written enough
+ I have tried Juliet Marillier's Heart's Blood and bounced hard off the style. I do not think she is for me.
+ I have tried Mermaid Moon within the last couple of days and had the same experience (though the styles are opposite!)
+ I don't want to read something super fluffy. I recently reread Ella Enchanted and it's still so lovable! But it's a little fluffier than what I'm wanting right now.
Some examples:
+ Robin McKinley's Beauty, Rose Daughter, Spindle's End, Chalice, Deerskin (I also love her other books, but they aren't on this list because they're a different subgenre in my mind)
+ Summers at Castle Auburn
+ The Perilous Gard
+ Book of a Thousand Days
+ Lud-in-the-Mist
Some that aren't quite in this genre but have similar feels:
+ Wise Child and Juniper
+ Spinning Silver and Uprooted
I am currently reading The Hollow Kingdom, which I think belongs in the "similar feel" category, but I'm not sure if I'm going to like it yet.
Does anyone have recs along these lines?
Some things to take into consideration:
+ I don't like 97% of contemporary YA (say, anything written after about 2005), but I am very willing to read MG if it's well-written enough
+ I have tried Juliet Marillier's Heart's Blood and bounced hard off the style. I do not think she is for me.
+ I have tried Mermaid Moon within the last couple of days and had the same experience (though the styles are opposite!)
+ I don't want to read something super fluffy. I recently reread Ella Enchanted and it's still so lovable! But it's a little fluffier than what I'm wanting right now.
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I wonder if you might like "Vessel" by Sarah Beth Durst but it's not quite any of that. I liked the whole thing but the ending.
And have you read....I'm trying to remember the title but can't. It's a retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth but YA and more to do with identity. I tried searching my bookshelf but...I'll look again.
And maybe "Sorcery of Thorns" by Margaret Rogerson which you might like also because it has sentient books.
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I liked the whole thing but the ending.
I'll have to look up spoilers then before I decide whether to read it!
It's a retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth but YA and more to do with identity.
Huh. Interesting.
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She ended up with the protagonist I sort of wasn't expecting, iirc. It's not a bad ending just could have been executed better?
I think the other one I was referring to was "Guardian of the Dead" by Karen Healey, which apparently is not Orpheus and Eurydice but a Maori myth but I distinctly remember something about someone not being allowed to look back or some such? It's been a few years.