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andreajay's review against another edition
adventurous
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
3.0
lilaceous's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
mysterious
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
characters - ⭐️
plot - .5⭐️
engaging to read - .5⭐️
would recommend - .5⭐️
would read again - ⭐️
what a beautifully imagined world!! i haven’t read a book this magical in a while and i’m grateful to a sweet new friend for picking it out for me :)
what a beautifully imagined world!! i haven’t read a book this magical in a while and i’m grateful to a sweet new friend for picking it out for me :)
bookishblond's review against another edition
5.0
I love this book so much. Along with [b:Dragon's Bait|372807|Dragon's Bait|Vivian Vande Velde|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388607364l/372807._SY75_.jpg|1307970], Black Unicorn is one of the books I would check out from the library over and over when I was in middle school. I haven't read it since then, and I'm pleased to say it holds up. It's just as magical as it was for me 20 years ago.
Tanaquil is the 15-year-old daughter of Jaive, a powerful sorceress who lives in an isolated fortress in the middle of a vast desert. Tanaquil isn't a sorceress like her mother, but she has an incredible ability to fix things. A peeve, who can talk (sort of) after being accidentally splashed with Jaive's magic, begins to bring Tanaquil mysterious bones. Following the peeve to where it found the bones, Tanaquil unearths the entire skeleton, and pieces it together. A unicorn. After a brief, magical encounter at a fortress dinner, Tanaquil dashes into the desert and wakes in the morning confused and miles from the fortress. With the peeve by her side, Tanaquil begins to trek through the desert, following the road fate laid for her.
Despite this technically being a YA book, Tanith Lee is well known for her dark "adult" fantasy and this book definitely toes the line between the genres. I highly, highly recommend it.
Tanaquil is the 15-year-old daughter of Jaive, a powerful sorceress who lives in an isolated fortress in the middle of a vast desert. Tanaquil isn't a sorceress like her mother, but she has an incredible ability to fix things. A peeve, who can talk (sort of) after being accidentally splashed with Jaive's magic, begins to bring Tanaquil mysterious bones. Following the peeve to where it found the bones, Tanaquil unearths the entire skeleton, and pieces it together. A unicorn. After a brief, magical encounter at a fortress dinner, Tanaquil dashes into the desert and wakes in the morning confused and miles from the fortress. With the peeve by her side, Tanaquil begins to trek through the desert, following the road fate laid for her.
Despite this technically being a YA book, Tanith Lee is well known for her dark "adult" fantasy and this book definitely toes the line between the genres. I highly, highly recommend it.
mifterkim's review against another edition
5.0
Black Unicorn is a short fantasy novel about Tanaquil, a young woman who is the unmagical daughter of a powerful sorceress, growing up in a fortress in the middle of a desert far away from any cities or other people. Her only talent is the mending of any mechanical device or structure. The book starts when she assembles the skeleton of a mysterious creature, who is then animated into the black unicorn of the title. The unicorn runs away and Tanaquil follows, finding adventure and destiny along the way.
I loved this strange, magical fairytale-like book. The rich descriptions of the environments were incredibly evocative and the plot is full of adventure despite being so short. It was a lovely little book that I enjoyed wholeheartedly and I am so happy to have found it.
I loved this strange, magical fairytale-like book. The rich descriptions of the environments were incredibly evocative and the plot is full of adventure despite being so short. It was a lovely little book that I enjoyed wholeheartedly and I am so happy to have found it.
magratajostiernos's review against another edition
5.0
Tanith Lee creó en 'El unicornio negro' una historia más infantil/juvenil de lo que era habitual en ella, pero su universo y estilo literario permaneció intacto.
Siempre es una maravilla leer a esta autora, por su ingenio, la exuberancia de su lenguaje, su rico universo lleno de mitología clásica pero que retuerce para transformarlo en algo novedoso...
Adoré especialmente la parte inicial de este libro; ese castillo en medio del desierto con la hija de la bruja, el gruñón, los guardianes y ese misterioso esqueleto de unicornio... el relato está empapado de una atmósfera totalmente única que hace que mientras lo estás leyendo realmente sientas que viajas a otro universo, a ese mundo de los cuentos de hadas... pero uno más divertido, sutil y agudo.
La historia va cambiando y creciendo, es un coming of age en el que viajamos con nuestra protagonista a encontrar su destino, y ese viaje siempre consigue sorprender aún caminando por los senderos habituales de los cuentos clásicos.
No es su mejor novela, eso está claro, pero simplemente adoro a esta autora, no puedo decir más.
Siempre es una maravilla leer a esta autora, por su ingenio, la exuberancia de su lenguaje, su rico universo lleno de mitología clásica pero que retuerce para transformarlo en algo novedoso...
Adoré especialmente la parte inicial de este libro; ese castillo en medio del desierto con la hija de la bruja, el gruñón, los guardianes y ese misterioso esqueleto de unicornio... el relato está empapado de una atmósfera totalmente única que hace que mientras lo estás leyendo realmente sientas que viajas a otro universo, a ese mundo de los cuentos de hadas... pero uno más divertido, sutil y agudo.
La historia va cambiando y creciendo, es un coming of age en el que viajamos con nuestra protagonista a encontrar su destino, y ese viaje siempre consigue sorprender aún caminando por los senderos habituales de los cuentos clásicos.
No es su mejor novela, eso está claro, pero simplemente adoro a esta autora, no puedo decir más.
naes's review
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
This is a YA story of a teenager escaping her mother to follow a unicorn.
Rating this has been difficult for me. I really enjoyed it. Something is holding me back from 4 stars however. I just cannot put my finger on what it is.
The way Tanith Lee writes is nothing short of beautiful. The descriptions and the way she pulls you into the world are lovely. The world building is great. Having a unicorn which isn’t your run of the mill perfect creature was really refreshing.
Overall it’s a solid book and I will definitely be continuing the series. I just don’t know what’s holding me back from 4 stars.
Rating this has been difficult for me. I really enjoyed it. Something is holding me back from 4 stars however. I just cannot put my finger on what it is.
The way Tanith Lee writes is nothing short of beautiful. The descriptions and the way she pulls you into the world are lovely. The world building is great. Having a unicorn which isn’t your run of the mill perfect creature was really refreshing.
Overall it’s a solid book and I will definitely be continuing the series. I just don’t know what’s holding me back from 4 stars.
charlotekerstenauthor's review against another edition
"It wasn't our fault we weren't given the best, but this, and all the things that are wrong. But can't we improve it? Make it better? I don't know how, the odds are all against us. And yet—just to think of it, just to try—that's a start."
So What's It About?
Tanaquil (a great heroine with a name that sounds like a cough medicine) spends her days dying of boredom in her mother's desert fortress. Her mother is a beautiful and accomplished sorceress but she has no time for her magically-bereft daughter, and it is up to Tanaquil to fill her days by repairing mechanical items. One day an obnoxious little creature called a peeve uncovers the skeleton of a unicorn in the desert, and Tanaquil reassembles it. Miraculously, her work brings it back to life, and the unicorn's escape into the desert spurs Tanaquil to chase after it, embarking on a quest to experience the world for the first time ever.
What I Thought
Black Unicorn maintains a graceful balance between its wry sense of humor and its mythic quality, between its emphasis on human connection and the realm of the entirely otherworldy. It's a strange, charming, disarming little book that never strays far away from the central theme of coping with the messiness and imperfection of the world.
The story is at its most impactful when the awe-inspiring depiction of the unicorn. It's not the kind of creature that would immediately come to mind at the mention of a unicorn: there are no rainbows or sparkles, and it has no proud spirit that is just waiting to be tamed by the right girl. The unicorn is truly an otherworldly, alien being that is astoundingly powerful and terrifying:
"It was no longer only a beast of bone. It had grown flesh and form. It was black as night, black as every night of the world together, and it shone as the night shines with a comet. On this burning blackness, the mane and the flaunting tail of it were like an acid, golden-silver fire off the sea, and it was bearded in this sea-fire-acid, and spikes of it were on the slender fetlocks. Its eyes were red as metal in a forge. It was not simply beauty and strength, it was terror."
The moment when I realized why the unicorn needed Tanaquil was an extremely powerful one; I nearly cried at the thought of this incredibly wondrous creature being trapped and ensnared, gradually falling to pieces alone in the desert, far away from the heavenly realm that it longed for. The entire section of the book where Tanaquil manages to help it return to its home and then wanders its land in bliss before realizing that her imperfect presence is corrupting it is so vividly realized and extraordinary.
Lee creates a richly realized desert world that is bursting with life and beauty, but in keeping with the book's theme of imperfection, there is a perpetual dark undercurrent to the vividness of the world, as when she describes the bizarre people who operate the elevators in the palace:
"...their feet never missing the treads, their eyes red, foaming at the mouth."
The same ideas are at play when the book deals with the messiness and complexity of family relationships. A significant part of Tanaquil's journey is spent reflecting upon family: first in assuming that her mother doesn't love her and will not bother to search for her, then in delightedly realizing that she has a sister that she never knew about, and finally in realizing that her mother, while certainly a complex and flawed woman, does in fact love her deeply. Her sister, Lizra, must also come to terms with her own deeply flawed father and her struggle to do her duty as princess. The fundamental lesson that Tanaquil learns, both from the unicorn and from her family, is that perfection is simply an impossibility for humans but that impossibility does not mean that we cannot still find joy and keep trying to make things better.
I'd be remiss if I didn't dedicate a distinct portion of this review to celebrating the peeve, a cranky and rambunctious little animal that has been enchanted so that it speaks (albeit with a very fragmented vocabulary) and accompanies Tanaquil on her adventure. It is a truly delightful, adorable and hilarious little pest of a creature, and Lee's sense of humor often displays itself when describing the peeve's antics:
"The herbal tea spread across the floor, and the peeve drank it, sneezing and snuffling. A piece of toast had fallen on its head, and it threw it off with an irritated "Bone, bone.""
It's notable that the female protagonist's main talent lies in her patient and painstaking mechanical leanings:
"Tanaquil worked carefully on broken dolls and clocks, music boxes, and even sometimes some of the soldiers' crossbows, or bits of the cannon, which were never used except by accident and often went wrong
In addition to that, she is an intrepid young woman who quickly learns to advocate for herself and navigate the complexities of the world outside her mother's fortress. A great deal of her navigation involves dealing with the sexist prohibitions and expectations of the men she encounters on her journey; they assume that she is helpless and subservient, and that she should not be allowed to work in repairs because she is a girl. She always outwits them or manipulates their expectations to serve her own purposes.
In addition, her incredible friendship and (later on) her sisterhood with Lizra are hugely important to her development throughout the story:
"For the first time, Tanaquil had met someone who fully accepted her ideas, credited her experience, did not try to placate or compress her spirit."
Lizra and Tanaquil see each other for the complicated and imperfect, multifaceted young women that they both are, and the story would be much the lesser without the blossoming of the trusting, unequivocally loving relationship between these two girls:
"She was several beings at once as she stood there. A girl who was sorry, a girl who was a sister, a woman who would rule, a child who wanted to be a child. She was sly and arrogant, sad and wistful, proud and immovable, selfish. Lonely. Like me. Just like me."
So What's It About?
Tanaquil (a great heroine with a name that sounds like a cough medicine) spends her days dying of boredom in her mother's desert fortress. Her mother is a beautiful and accomplished sorceress but she has no time for her magically-bereft daughter, and it is up to Tanaquil to fill her days by repairing mechanical items. One day an obnoxious little creature called a peeve uncovers the skeleton of a unicorn in the desert, and Tanaquil reassembles it. Miraculously, her work brings it back to life, and the unicorn's escape into the desert spurs Tanaquil to chase after it, embarking on a quest to experience the world for the first time ever.
What I Thought
Black Unicorn maintains a graceful balance between its wry sense of humor and its mythic quality, between its emphasis on human connection and the realm of the entirely otherworldy. It's a strange, charming, disarming little book that never strays far away from the central theme of coping with the messiness and imperfection of the world.
The story is at its most impactful when the awe-inspiring depiction of the unicorn. It's not the kind of creature that would immediately come to mind at the mention of a unicorn: there are no rainbows or sparkles, and it has no proud spirit that is just waiting to be tamed by the right girl. The unicorn is truly an otherworldly, alien being that is astoundingly powerful and terrifying:
"It was no longer only a beast of bone. It had grown flesh and form. It was black as night, black as every night of the world together, and it shone as the night shines with a comet. On this burning blackness, the mane and the flaunting tail of it were like an acid, golden-silver fire off the sea, and it was bearded in this sea-fire-acid, and spikes of it were on the slender fetlocks. Its eyes were red as metal in a forge. It was not simply beauty and strength, it was terror."
The moment when I realized why the unicorn needed Tanaquil was an extremely powerful one; I nearly cried at the thought of this incredibly wondrous creature being trapped and ensnared, gradually falling to pieces alone in the desert, far away from the heavenly realm that it longed for. The entire section of the book where Tanaquil manages to help it return to its home and then wanders its land in bliss before realizing that her imperfect presence is corrupting it is so vividly realized and extraordinary.
Lee creates a richly realized desert world that is bursting with life and beauty, but in keeping with the book's theme of imperfection, there is a perpetual dark undercurrent to the vividness of the world, as when she describes the bizarre people who operate the elevators in the palace:
"...their feet never missing the treads, their eyes red, foaming at the mouth."
The same ideas are at play when the book deals with the messiness and complexity of family relationships. A significant part of Tanaquil's journey is spent reflecting upon family: first in assuming that her mother doesn't love her and will not bother to search for her, then in delightedly realizing that she has a sister that she never knew about, and finally in realizing that her mother, while certainly a complex and flawed woman, does in fact love her deeply. Her sister, Lizra, must also come to terms with her own deeply flawed father and her struggle to do her duty as princess. The fundamental lesson that Tanaquil learns, both from the unicorn and from her family, is that perfection is simply an impossibility for humans but that impossibility does not mean that we cannot still find joy and keep trying to make things better.
I'd be remiss if I didn't dedicate a distinct portion of this review to celebrating the peeve, a cranky and rambunctious little animal that has been enchanted so that it speaks (albeit with a very fragmented vocabulary) and accompanies Tanaquil on her adventure. It is a truly delightful, adorable and hilarious little pest of a creature, and Lee's sense of humor often displays itself when describing the peeve's antics:
"The herbal tea spread across the floor, and the peeve drank it, sneezing and snuffling. A piece of toast had fallen on its head, and it threw it off with an irritated "Bone, bone.""
It's notable that the female protagonist's main talent lies in her patient and painstaking mechanical leanings:
"Tanaquil worked carefully on broken dolls and clocks, music boxes, and even sometimes some of the soldiers' crossbows, or bits of the cannon, which were never used except by accident and often went wrong
In addition to that, she is an intrepid young woman who quickly learns to advocate for herself and navigate the complexities of the world outside her mother's fortress. A great deal of her navigation involves dealing with the sexist prohibitions and expectations of the men she encounters on her journey; they assume that she is helpless and subservient, and that she should not be allowed to work in repairs because she is a girl. She always outwits them or manipulates their expectations to serve her own purposes.
In addition, her incredible friendship and (later on) her sisterhood with Lizra are hugely important to her development throughout the story:
"For the first time, Tanaquil had met someone who fully accepted her ideas, credited her experience, did not try to placate or compress her spirit."
Lizra and Tanaquil see each other for the complicated and imperfect, multifaceted young women that they both are, and the story would be much the lesser without the blossoming of the trusting, unequivocally loving relationship between these two girls:
"She was several beings at once as she stood there. A girl who was sorry, a girl who was a sister, a woman who would rule, a child who wanted to be a child. She was sly and arrogant, sad and wistful, proud and immovable, selfish. Lonely. Like me. Just like me."
rainmisoa's review against another edition
5.0
ntembeast's review against another edition
4.0
Some might question why I would rate this book Four out of Five Stars, and I will back up my reasoning for this by stating that at first read, it may not seem like it's worth such a rating. The beginning all the way through until nearly the very end is full of chaotic, annoying, even frustrating situations. There are so many things that are all over the place, and that go wrong or annoy the heck out of you in this book, or that make no sense in any logical way possible. Plus the people, with the exception of--ironically--Gork, in my opinion, are all for the most part things to just get in the way and muddle everything up even more. It can be a really annoying read because the entire mood of the book is wrought with high-tension and a very tangible line of ire. Every second you can sense an aggression in the characters or situations the story leads you through. And when there's no anger, you're still liable to grit your teeth and try to muscle your way through. Even the way the story reads adds to this, and since this is the only book I've read by Tanith Lee, I'm not sure if this is her writing style, or if she did it on purpose. However, I'm leaning towards the second one for a reason that I will explain shortly. The book for the most part, to sum it up, comes off as a very terse, very aggravating read. There's little sense in it, and the situations you read about are hard to accept, because they're either annoying or revolting or insulting enough to make any sensible person refuse to.
...and then you get to the part of the book's namesake: The Unicorn. It's not your normal fantasy book, because instead of being filled with awe-inspiring magical lands and deeds and High Magic, and blah blah blah, etc.~ You have the world of chaos I described to you above. Indeed, when you first are introduced to the unicorn in the book, it's not a fussy, pretty-pet-me pony-type like you expect, with posies in its hair and all that girly mush (no offense, gals; I like my girly things every so often too~) you expect from what you've heard of unicorns. No, instead you have this powerful, otherworldly, fearsome creature more like a monster than some frilly confection of a girl's imagination. This creature alone strikes an elaborate and shadowy feeling of magic throughout the story, casting a streak of vivid life on the obscenity of the contrived world around it. It's so alien in the scenario of this book that it immediately catches you, and refuses to let you go. You read on for pages wondering where it went, when it'll appear again, what it wants and where it's taking you.
Then you find out. You find out everything. But it doesn't prepare you for the thrilling, beautiful concept that this book throws at you. It's like a fraction's glimpse into something you never expected, and yet makes so much...sense! And just as soon as you've got it, you get thrown yet another curve. And it's almost too much to bear, but through it, the main character, Tanaquil, finds a strength that's no longer grim, no longer stumbling or bitter. She grows in a way that you almost don't notice until at the very end of the book you realize you're seeing someone else talking, and that all the smarts and sarcasm she had before have now gone through possibly the worst and most beautiful fire ever. Knowing what she had to turn her back on would wrench anyone's heart right into their throat, because it's cruel and wonderful, sad and yet has to be the way it ended. And because of that, you realize her mind and her heart have been cured by the flames of that terrible trial, and she's grown out of that stubborn, vengeful child she was at the beginning of the book.
Oh, one other character I must talk about. The Peeve. It's actually the name of a race of little animals with thick, curly fur that live in the desert and like to burrow. I always imagined them as a cross between these really fuzzy doggies, with all their snuffling and snorting, and bone-digging and such. *Laughs* There's one in this book, and it doesn't have a name throughout the entire thing, so while Tanaquil just talks to it directly, the author addresses it "the peeve" and so on. But. IT IS SOOOOOO CUTE. Seriously! I'm a big animal lover, and I've read a TON of fantasy books with different types of animals in them, old and new species alike. But this one... is just... EPIC!!! I am seriously in jaw-dropping, fangirly-squeeing, "I MUST HAVE ONE NOW!!!!!" love with the Peeves! XD They are flippin' hilarious and undeniably cute!! <333 Plus the one that's with Tanaquil can talk, since some loose magic touched it, so you get these absolutely precious lines from it throughout the rest of the rancid situations in the book that just bring a smile to your face or make you laugh. And trust me, in this book, you could REALLY use that! From every territorial to dog-like trait it has, to the image of it throwing up tons of sand as it digs furiously for whatever it's looking for now, is so priceless in this book.
In the end, the greatness of this book is in its ending, when you find out not just what the unicorn wanted Tanaquil to do, but also what happens when Tanaquil follows it into where it leads her. And I'm being very specific here. There is something amazing that happens, but to avoid spoiling the book, I don't want to say it. However, there's something that happens when Tanaquil's in that last place the unicorn leads her to, and when she turns around and looks back behind her, and sees what happened because of the fact that she crossed that threshold...the words that she says to that place, and the way it accepts her words...that's one of the most powerful scenes in the entire book. The power of what she decided, and what she said there in that place, is profound. It's part of the choice she makes, on the very last page or two of the book, when she tells the peeve what she wants to do now. What she's going to do. All the acrid, vicious, aggressiveness of her world and ours is made up for by those last parts of the book. It makes every bad and ireful thing worth it; makes the abrupt, wild, chaotic journey seem like the smallest price to have paid for what she's learned and decided to do now. And I can honestly say it's one of the best endings to a book I've ever read. It's got such hope, maybe a foolish, thin hope, but powerful and unstoppable for someone who saw just what it could be like if it was really accomplished.
*Smiles* You won't know the full meaning of it until you've read this. Trust me, all the annoyances and stupidity and disgust is worth it for the end. It's one of those books, and definitely one of those experiences. It's just so worth it. If you're a fantasy or magic lover at all, you have to give this book a shot. It's probably not the typical magical fairytale you're used to, but it's a great story for feeding the mind with rich, amazing ideas. Bringing in my own personal experience, this is one of the five or six books I read out of hundreds when I was in 7th Grade that always stuck with me. And being a huge Fantasy reader during that time, almost all of them were the same genre as this book. Yet this was one of the very few that I still remember and keep close to my heart even now, nearly ten years later. It has influenced a great deal of my own writing over the years, until it's become a permanent staple of my imagination. *Smiles warmly* And that is the highest compliment I can pay a book and its author.
I still feel it was missing something, and it left me needing more--wanting much, much more. I could never bring myself to say it was "amazing," because there was always an element missing to the characters themselves that made it hard to feel an affinity even for Tanaquil at some points. She was a wonderful character, but maybe it was the style of the book that threw me off. It was very to-the-point and didn't elaborate on the main character in a lot of places where it could have. This made it hard to relate to Tanaquil as closely as I wanted to a lot of times. If there had been more focus on Tanaquil as the main character, this would have been eased and probably made the book a lot more relate-able and even enjoyable. Instead we get a sense that Tanaquil herself is just another character, one that we happen to be following more than the others. That's the only real complaint I have for this book: that Tanaquil as the main character should have been placed into that position a little more relate-ably instead of seeming so distant from the reader. At the same time, I can understand how this would be difficult considering the mood of the story, but I feel that it should have been manageable, and would have greatly improved the book.
Nonetheless! This is a book that is worth the read, and will probably add variety to the typical fantasy books that are out there. Its ideas may come off coarsely, but the ideas themselves are so worth your reading that it well makes up for it with them. Plus, the character is smart, if a little cynical at first. It's a great book for anyone expanding their Fantasy/Magic collections, and will give you a swift, interesting lesson in mood-setting. Pick it up, in the library or on sale, but give it a shot. You may find it more interesting than you bargained for, even if the writing style may sometimes catch you off guard and set you off balance. It's earned the stars I gave it by my book!
...and then you get to the part of the book's namesake: The Unicorn. It's not your normal fantasy book, because instead of being filled with awe-inspiring magical lands and deeds and High Magic, and blah blah blah, etc.~ You have the world of chaos I described to you above. Indeed, when you first are introduced to the unicorn in the book, it's not a fussy, pretty-pet-me pony-type like you expect, with posies in its hair and all that girly mush (no offense, gals; I like my girly things every so often too~) you expect from what you've heard of unicorns. No, instead you have this powerful, otherworldly, fearsome creature more like a monster than some frilly confection of a girl's imagination. This creature alone strikes an elaborate and shadowy feeling of magic throughout the story, casting a streak of vivid life on the obscenity of the contrived world around it. It's so alien in the scenario of this book that it immediately catches you, and refuses to let you go. You read on for pages wondering where it went, when it'll appear again, what it wants and where it's taking you.
Then you find out. You find out everything. But it doesn't prepare you for the thrilling, beautiful concept that this book throws at you. It's like a fraction's glimpse into something you never expected, and yet makes so much...sense! And just as soon as you've got it, you get thrown yet another curve. And it's almost too much to bear, but through it, the main character, Tanaquil, finds a strength that's no longer grim, no longer stumbling or bitter. She grows in a way that you almost don't notice until at the very end of the book you realize you're seeing someone else talking, and that all the smarts and sarcasm she had before have now gone through possibly the worst and most beautiful fire ever. Knowing what she had to turn her back on would wrench anyone's heart right into their throat, because it's cruel and wonderful, sad and yet has to be the way it ended. And because of that, you realize her mind and her heart have been cured by the flames of that terrible trial, and she's grown out of that stubborn, vengeful child she was at the beginning of the book.
Oh, one other character I must talk about. The Peeve. It's actually the name of a race of little animals with thick, curly fur that live in the desert and like to burrow. I always imagined them as a cross between these really fuzzy doggies, with all their snuffling and snorting, and bone-digging and such. *Laughs* There's one in this book, and it doesn't have a name throughout the entire thing, so while Tanaquil just talks to it directly, the author addresses it "the peeve" and so on. But. IT IS SOOOOOO CUTE. Seriously! I'm a big animal lover, and I've read a TON of fantasy books with different types of animals in them, old and new species alike. But this one... is just... EPIC!!! I am seriously in jaw-dropping, fangirly-squeeing, "I MUST HAVE ONE NOW!!!!!" love with the Peeves! XD They are flippin' hilarious and undeniably cute!! <333 Plus the one that's with Tanaquil can talk, since some loose magic touched it, so you get these absolutely precious lines from it throughout the rest of the rancid situations in the book that just bring a smile to your face or make you laugh. And trust me, in this book, you could REALLY use that! From every territorial to dog-like trait it has, to the image of it throwing up tons of sand as it digs furiously for whatever it's looking for now, is so priceless in this book.
In the end, the greatness of this book is in its ending, when you find out not just what the unicorn wanted Tanaquil to do, but also what happens when Tanaquil follows it into where it leads her. And I'm being very specific here. There is something amazing that happens, but to avoid spoiling the book, I don't want to say it. However, there's something that happens when Tanaquil's in that last place the unicorn leads her to, and when she turns around and looks back behind her, and sees what happened because of the fact that she crossed that threshold...the words that she says to that place, and the way it accepts her words...that's one of the most powerful scenes in the entire book. The power of what she decided, and what she said there in that place, is profound. It's part of the choice she makes, on the very last page or two of the book, when she tells the peeve what she wants to do now. What she's going to do. All the acrid, vicious, aggressiveness of her world and ours is made up for by those last parts of the book. It makes every bad and ireful thing worth it; makes the abrupt, wild, chaotic journey seem like the smallest price to have paid for what she's learned and decided to do now. And I can honestly say it's one of the best endings to a book I've ever read. It's got such hope, maybe a foolish, thin hope, but powerful and unstoppable for someone who saw just what it could be like if it was really accomplished.
*Smiles* You won't know the full meaning of it until you've read this. Trust me, all the annoyances and stupidity and disgust is worth it for the end. It's one of those books, and definitely one of those experiences. It's just so worth it. If you're a fantasy or magic lover at all, you have to give this book a shot. It's probably not the typical magical fairytale you're used to, but it's a great story for feeding the mind with rich, amazing ideas. Bringing in my own personal experience, this is one of the five or six books I read out of hundreds when I was in 7th Grade that always stuck with me. And being a huge Fantasy reader during that time, almost all of them were the same genre as this book. Yet this was one of the very few that I still remember and keep close to my heart even now, nearly ten years later. It has influenced a great deal of my own writing over the years, until it's become a permanent staple of my imagination. *Smiles warmly* And that is the highest compliment I can pay a book and its author.
I still feel it was missing something, and it left me needing more--wanting much, much more. I could never bring myself to say it was "amazing," because there was always an element missing to the characters themselves that made it hard to feel an affinity even for Tanaquil at some points. She was a wonderful character, but maybe it was the style of the book that threw me off. It was very to-the-point and didn't elaborate on the main character in a lot of places where it could have. This made it hard to relate to Tanaquil as closely as I wanted to a lot of times. If there had been more focus on Tanaquil as the main character, this would have been eased and probably made the book a lot more relate-able and even enjoyable. Instead we get a sense that Tanaquil herself is just another character, one that we happen to be following more than the others. That's the only real complaint I have for this book: that Tanaquil as the main character should have been placed into that position a little more relate-ably instead of seeming so distant from the reader. At the same time, I can understand how this would be difficult considering the mood of the story, but I feel that it should have been manageable, and would have greatly improved the book.
Nonetheless! This is a book that is worth the read, and will probably add variety to the typical fantasy books that are out there. Its ideas may come off coarsely, but the ideas themselves are so worth your reading that it well makes up for it with them. Plus, the character is smart, if a little cynical at first. It's a great book for anyone expanding their Fantasy/Magic collections, and will give you a swift, interesting lesson in mood-setting. Pick it up, in the library or on sale, but give it a shot. You may find it more interesting than you bargained for, even if the writing style may sometimes catch you off guard and set you off balance. It's earned the stars I gave it by my book!
allthembooks's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5