I'm a long-time fan of Charles de Lint. I've read about 25 of his books to date and my goal is to read all of them.
I LOVE his books; they're so other worldly and have such wonderful characters and detailed plots, so I was a tiny bit sad that his latest book doesn't quite live up to his others.
I still enjoyed the story very much but it was short and, I felt, lacking in depth.
The story is all about Juniper Wiles who used to be a teen detective in a TV show called Nora Constantine. But Juniper put all that behind her and moved back to Newford to live near Jilly Coppercorn and the gang.
Almost immediately she's confronted by a ghost who needs her help.
It turns out that the fictional characters from the Nora Constantine show are leading separate lives in another world and now the problems and some of those characters are bleeding into this world.
Juniper is quickly brought up to to speed with ghosts, other worlds, faeries, etc. and, at Jilly's urging, decides to search for the lost Nora.
If you haven't read any of the de Lint books, this isn't a good one to start with. It totally stands on its own but I don't feel it's strong enough to turn a new de Lint reader into a fan.
This book was short (only 208 pages) and while it contained many of the beloved characters from previous stories (Joe is one of my favourites) it doesn't have any real teeth.
One of the things I love about de Lint's books is that they're typically well-developed, rich and complex. With Juniper Wiles it felt like de Lint was just kind of scratching the surface with respect to plot and characters. I didn't get any of that deep satisfaction I usually get reading one of his books.
And I have to say it -- the ending was really lame -- it just stopped like some kind of comedy sitcom. Weird.
Will I read more de Lint books?
Absolutely! I'll always be a die-hard fan, but IMO this isn't one of his best.
Happy reading!
Post a Comment