Rosemary and Rue

This was an okay book. A solid meh. It wasn't bad. But it also didn't grab me in any way. I've enjoyed some of McGuire's other books more so I think it might just not be the genre for me, or something. The worldbuilding was interesting, the interactions between the worlds of fae and San Francisco, and the heroine Toby at least had a fairly interesting and complex back story instead of just springing from nowhere like so many similar kick-ass-PI-style fantasy heroines. But she also just wasn't very interesting. She spends the entire book reacting, stumbling around basically blindly, and making frequent mistakes. She does stupid things, like rushing in without backup, and not checking in with people she should check in with, and isolating herself assuming everyone hates her or something. Irritating, and not traits that endear a character to me. By the end of the book she's just stumbled around doing almost nothing clever or intelligent at all and allowing several innocent people to die along the way due to her inability to prepare better and ask for help. While I see from other reviews that most people say the series improves by book 4 or 5, I just don't feel enough motivation to try and get there right now ... off to some other series instead!

Changeling October Daye was living a mortal life with her human husband and daughter when she was turned into a koi carp, destined to live out her life in the Tea Garden of Golden Gate Park. 14 years later, she miraculously transforms back into her old self, but the rest of the world has moved on. Her family has mourned her and refuse to take her back. In turn, Toby has turned her back on the fae world, until she receives a series of voicemail messages from the Countess of Goldengreen, Evening. In her final moments, the pureblood had reached out to Toby and when she didn’t answer she bound her. Toby must find out who murdered the woman who was the closest she had to a friend or face death herself.

I was warned by several trustworthy sources that this series takes a while to get going. There is an info-dump approach to world-building, lots of paragraphs throwing information about the fae at you and somewhat breaking up the flow of the story. Sometimes the snippets of back-story made me feel there should be other books prior to Rosemary and Rue (there aren’t). I think if you weren’t used to the mythology of fae, you might struggle to pick up on everything. However, I am writing this having read several other books and it gets so much better. Your patience will be rewarded!

However the story really picks up in the second half and settles into the sort of urban fantasy mystery the series promises to be. I am really fond of novel featuring the fae as something to be wary of, with a mix of different races and prejudices; weird creatures lurking in the shadows. I think this series has potential to deliver a fantastic split-world between reality (San Francisco) and the Summerlands (the world beyond the veil). Devin’s whole set-up seemed really dodgy and I’m not sure there was enough supporting information to really grasp Toby’s ambivalent feelings. It sounded like he was a changeling pimp but this was never made clear, perhaps he just used the poor teens in his “care”.

I instantly loved Tybalt, the King of Cats. A Cait Sidhe who is cat-like even in his humanoid form but a grouchy tabby in his other. He probably has the least amount of back-story and I do think the lack of over-description adds to his mystique. Some of the other characters are a bit obvious (Connor) and you know I like the bad boys (even though we know they must be redeemable). There’s not really an emphasis on romance (nor sex, I don’t think there was any) but this makes any little interactions between characters all the more effective.

The books all come with a pronunciation guide, which is useful if you’re unfamiliar with the traditional fae names, however I think some of the words are a little obvious! All the titles come from Shakespearean quotes, and I think the relevant plays are connected in small ways. I promise this series gets better.

This started off strong, but it lost a whooooole bunch of steam as it went. The story never really felt like it was driving forward, just sort of meandering onward.

Toby is likeable enough, but she's sort of ineffectual. She spends a large portion of the book constantly being battered about and recovering from various near-fatal injuries and in the grand scheme of the plot and what she's attempting to do, very rarely does she ever actually accomplish anything herself. Which is not to say that she has to be an invulnerable superwoman, and having help is fine. But Toby (and thus the narrative since it's first person) constantly harps on how relatively weak she is as compared to all of the extremely powerful beings around her and that's consistently held up by the text, which leaves one wondering why exactly everyone wants her to do everything in the first place. Vague reasons involving fairy law and politics, also loyalties, etc. are bandied about and obviously if the very powerful people took care of their own shit and/or got other very powerful people to do so you wouldn't have much of a story, but as with all such things it becomes a little frustrating after a while.

I also found the book very easily telegraphed, which doesn't have to be a bad thing, but since it revolved around a mystery that sort of took away any suspense. Plus, my being able to figure out the characters' entire motivation and plot arc generally upon first introduction meant that Toby often being inexplicably oblivious about things became grating. There are insignificant things that mostly just make me do things like go "...He obviously doesn't hate you?!" at various intervals throughout the entire book. Then there are much more important things like why exactly she seems to be aware that one dude is a total fucking creeper and predator/user&abuser and is wary of it, yet also simultaneously seems to be completely flabbergasted by the idea of him being a terrible person.

At any rate.

2.5/5