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katostano's review
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
ergative's review
3.5
In true Alex Bledsoe manner, the strength of this book lies in the depiction of the Tufa, with the uncanny combination of their human-facing squalid, impoverished existence in rural Appalachia, alongside their otherworldly magic and music. Each part is equally real, both the mundane and inhuman. And both components have their good and bad elements; it's nothing so simple as 'squalid human side = bad; magical fairy side = good'. The human hicks can be kind and decent and bigoted and cruel; and the magic of their songs and flights can be sinister and beautiful.
This book is a departure from previous Tufa tales, told entirely from the perspective of an outsider, one Matt Johansson, a New York stage actor. He is cast in a musical about Tufa history written by an ex-pat Tufa named Ray(ford) Parrish, which centers around the mystery of an ancient article buried by a long-dead Tufa in an old Chapel of Ease down in Tennessee. For a while it seems as if the primary conflict in the book might relate to the reluctance of the Tufa community to see their story told to outsiders, attracting attention of the outside world, but that actually fizzles out in a way I'm not entirely sure worked. Instead, the primary tension centers around the mystery what's buried in the chapel. In the play the mystery is never solved, which drives the cast of the play wild with frustration. Eventually, Matt finds himself travelling down to Needsville, Tennessee, the heart of Tufa-land, to seek out the original chapel that the play was based on, and dig up the mystery to find out for himself what it is.
A great deal of this driving tension derives from the fact that Ray is adamant that, for the purposes of his play, the actual revelation of the mystery is second to the story that is built around it. For this reason it's not necessary to reveal the solution to the audience. The emotional drama is all the more powerful if people remember the mystery; because once it's solved they won't care anymore. And it's entirely clear that Alex Bledsoe is playing a similar game with us, the readers of the book. This means, though, that Bledsoe has tied himself in a knot, because if he reveals the mystery to us, the reader, he's betrayed Ray Parrish's deeply held belief that the revelation is irrelevant; but if he doesn't reveal it, then we the readers share in the cast's frustration at being kept in the dark. And although Bledsoe is a very good writer, he is not a fairy-descended Tufa whose powers of music and dance are literally magical, rendering the emotional arc of the story so compelling that the solution becomes irrelevant. I think he managed to thread that needle in a way that made sense, but I was still left feeling a little dissatisfied in the end.
I should also mention that, although Bledsoe does the cultural representation of rural Appalachia with sensitivity and nuance, he really struggles with other bits of representation. I'm still fuming at how he treated the one black guy in 'Long Black Curl', and in this book he decides to take on gay people. Matt is gay. Down in Needsville, he starts a romance with a gay Tufa man. This is fine. The Tufa, apparently, are totally cool with gay people (except when the nasty ones call them 'faggots' an awful lot, but this is explained as being 'not personal', because they just use all the racial slurs as needed for outsiders; which, apparently, makes it less bad?).
No, the problem is more a sort of clumsiness in dealing with the situation. First, Matt is constantly turning lustful eyes on everyone and worrying about whether he'll be able to work effectively with them through his insta-crush. This is something I always find irritating, because fucking adults should be able to fucking control themselves and do their fucking jobs. But, to be fair, in previous books lustful men turn their gazes on women to similar effect, so it's a sort of equal opportunity male gaze thing, I guess. Alex Bledsoe's men have real difficulty keeping their brains out of their pants. But Matt has a boyfriend back in New York at the same time he's hooking up with his Tufa lover. This is excused by the arrival of a text message apparently intended for someone else, which implies his boyfriend is cheating on him back in New York. But because cell phone reception is so bad in Needsville, Matt can't get in touch with him to hash it out; which means that, in the event the text message was in fact innocent, he was fully cheating on his boyfriend.
Also, Matt knows martial arts, because his father told him when he came out that he would need to learn how to defend himself. And he's constantly using it against Tufas giving him a hard time. To be fair, they're not giving him a hard time for being gay (he does an awful lot of trespassing in his search for the Chapel of Ease), but it's the being gay bit that was responsible for him knowing how to kick some ass. And it just has the same sort of tokenistic feeling of forced competence that sets my teeth on edge when a girl!boss and strong!female!character has no flaws in an attempt to counteract the narrative that girls are weak. Like, I get the intention. I understand where it's coming from. But it still feels off. Matt is a lustful gay guy who can't keep his eyes to himself, cheats on his lovers with other men, but isn't your typical pansy-ass weako, because he knows Muay-Tai. It's well-intentioned, but it's clumsy.
At least he doesn't end up dead like the token black guy in the last book. That's progress, I guess.
This book is a departure from previous Tufa tales, told entirely from the perspective of an outsider, one Matt Johansson, a New York stage actor. He is cast in a musical about Tufa history written by an ex-pat Tufa named Ray(ford) Parrish, which centers around the mystery of an ancient article buried by a long-dead Tufa in an old Chapel of Ease down in Tennessee. For a while it seems as if the primary conflict in the book might relate to the reluctance of the Tufa community to see their story told to outsiders, attracting attention of the outside world, but that actually fizzles out in a way I'm not entirely sure worked. Instead, the primary tension centers around the mystery what's buried in the chapel. In the play the mystery is never solved, which drives the cast of the play wild with frustration. Eventually, Matt finds himself travelling down to Needsville, Tennessee, the heart of Tufa-land, to seek out the original chapel that the play was based on, and dig up the mystery to find out for himself what it is.
A great deal of this driving tension derives from the fact that Ray is adamant that, for the purposes of his play, the actual revelation of the mystery is second to the story that is built around it. For this reason it's not necessary to reveal the solution to the audience. The emotional drama is all the more powerful if people remember the mystery; because once it's solved they won't care anymore. And it's entirely clear that Alex Bledsoe is playing a similar game with us, the readers of the book. This means, though, that Bledsoe has tied himself in a knot, because if he reveals the mystery to us, the reader, he's betrayed Ray Parrish's deeply held belief that the revelation is irrelevant; but if he doesn't reveal it, then we the readers share in the cast's frustration at being kept in the dark. And although Bledsoe is a very good writer, he is not a fairy-descended Tufa whose powers of music and dance are literally magical, rendering the emotional arc of the story so compelling that the solution becomes irrelevant. I think he managed to thread that needle in a way that made sense, but I was still left feeling a little dissatisfied in the end.
I should also mention that, although Bledsoe does the cultural representation of rural Appalachia with sensitivity and nuance, he really struggles with other bits of representation. I'm still fuming at how he treated the one black guy in 'Long Black Curl', and in this book he decides to take on gay people. Matt is gay. Down in Needsville, he starts a romance with a gay Tufa man. This is fine. The Tufa, apparently, are totally cool with gay people (except when the nasty ones call them 'faggots' an awful lot, but this is explained as being 'not personal', because they just use all the racial slurs as needed for outsiders; which, apparently, makes it less bad?).
No, the problem is more a sort of clumsiness in dealing with the situation. First, Matt is constantly turning lustful eyes on everyone and worrying about whether he'll be able to work effectively with them through his insta-crush. This is something I always find irritating, because fucking adults should be able to fucking control themselves and do their fucking jobs. But, to be fair, in previous books lustful men turn their gazes on women to similar effect, so it's a sort of equal opportunity male gaze thing, I guess. Alex Bledsoe's men have real difficulty keeping their brains out of their pants. But Matt has a boyfriend back in New York at the same time he's hooking up with his Tufa lover. This is excused by the arrival of a text message apparently intended for someone else, which implies his boyfriend is cheating on him back in New York. But because cell phone reception is so bad in Needsville, Matt can't get in touch with him to hash it out; which means that, in the event the text message was in fact innocent, he was fully cheating on his boyfriend.
Also, Matt knows martial arts, because his father told him when he came out that he would need to learn how to defend himself. And he's constantly using it against Tufas giving him a hard time. To be fair, they're not giving him a hard time for being gay (he does an awful lot of trespassing in his search for the Chapel of Ease), but it's the being gay bit that was responsible for him knowing how to kick some ass. And it just has the same sort of tokenistic feeling of forced competence that sets my teeth on edge when a girl!boss and strong!female!character has no flaws in an attempt to counteract the narrative that girls are weak. Like, I get the intention. I understand where it's coming from. But it still feels off. Matt is a lustful gay guy who can't keep his eyes to himself, cheats on his lovers with other men, but isn't your typical pansy-ass weako, because he knows Muay-Tai. It's well-intentioned, but it's clumsy.
At least he doesn't end up dead like the token black guy in the last book. That's progress, I guess.
looloolibby's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
jaymeks's review against another edition
4.0
Alex Bledsoe is a damn genius. With each book, he continues to evolve this world, by taking it in places I never would have thought could work. These books are funny, touching, heartbreaking, and poignant, all at the same time. They are simply works of art. I find myself captivated by the prose, not able to put the book down until I'm done.
This book was different from his other Tufa novels. With the ending of the last book, I figured it would be a heavy novel talking about ramifications and focusing inward. Instead, out of nowhere, we get a first person book about a New York actor?
Part of me was disappointed at the start, not starting in Needsville, but then I read page 3 and all my fears were whisked away. The story simply flowed, like a river trickling through the hills, and before I knew it, I was done (and already longing for more).
I can't say enough about how much I love these books. They're not books that I traditionally would think of reading, let alone enjoying, but I am damn glad that I took the chance. Can't wait for the next 2, especially the epic 6th one!!
This book was different from his other Tufa novels. With the ending of the last book, I figured it would be a heavy novel talking about ramifications and focusing inward. Instead, out of nowhere, we get a first person book about a New York actor?
Part of me was disappointed at the start, not starting in Needsville, but then I read page 3 and all my fears were whisked away. The story simply flowed, like a river trickling through the hills, and before I knew it, I was done (and already longing for more).
I can't say enough about how much I love these books. They're not books that I traditionally would think of reading, let alone enjoying, but I am damn glad that I took the chance. Can't wait for the next 2, especially the epic 6th one!!
ielerol's review against another edition
3.0
The Tufa novels generally manage to handle some of my least favorite contemporary fantasy tropes (European magical creatures in the Americas, rival fairy courts, magic kept strictly secret from the mundane world) in ways that I actually quite enjoy. But this one being the first told only from the point of view of a non-Tufa character, it leaned heavily on another of my least favorite tropes, in-the-dark main character takes way too long to realize the supernatural nature of things the reader has known since the beginning. And this time I found it just as boring as usual. I just don't ever care about the journey of being convinced that fairies are real.
Not that I didn't like Matt, but I'm just more interested in the Tufa community itself than in outside views of it.
I think my favorite part of this book is the suggestion that the Tufa might finally end up a little more known to the wider world. Maybe someday one of them can leave Needsville without being traumatized in a war or dying young.
Not that I didn't like Matt, but I'm just more interested in the Tufa community itself than in outside views of it.
I think my favorite part of this book is the suggestion that the Tufa might finally end up a little more known to the wider world. Maybe someday one of them can leave Needsville without being traumatized in a war or dying young.
valjeanval's review
4.0
I really love the Tufa, and I make a point of downloading the next book whenever I go to my in-laws' house in the Smokies. Bledsoe really does justice to this landscape and I love his fae interpretation. That said, this installment really needed more of those two thing. The switch to first person, human POV didn't work for me, and while I'm always happy to read more diverse characters, Matt often seems defined by little else other than his sexuality and refusal to do literally anything anyone asks him to do. Emily's storyline gets zero emotional investment, and I just wanted more Bliss, Mandalay, and Bronwyn. Giving it a 4 because I love the series as a whole, but this was not the strongest volume.
graff_fuller's review
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
This is the most cinematic story of this series (so far). Not to say it couldn't be a great TV series, but THIS one was SO visual. I was watching it in my head...as I read and as Marie read. We also had the audiobook, when we were both tired, or eating meals.
Again, like the previous books, this story had a different protagonist, but a LOT of the previous characters populated the story, too...BUT more than anything, this was an outsider story looking in.
The idea of a Tufa going to NYC and writing a play/musical about a true event that happend at the Chapel of Ease. We want to see this play, part Hamilton, part Rent.
A lot of the plot devices were used in this story, as in previous ones, but to different effects.
We are LOVING this series immensely.
Again, like the previous books, this story had a different protagonist, but a LOT of the previous characters populated the story, too...BUT more than anything, this was an outsider story looking in.
The idea of a Tufa going to NYC and writing a play/musical about a true event that happend at the Chapel of Ease. We want to see this play, part Hamilton, part Rent.
A lot of the plot devices were used in this story, as in previous ones, but to different effects.
We are LOVING this series immensely.
ryelle_77's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
vailynst's review
4.0
Notes:
Currently on Audible Plus
I keep forgetting to mention how much I enjoy the way music & dance are woven to be at the heart of the Tufa life. Love it!
Currently on Audible Plus
I keep forgetting to mention how much I enjoy the way music & dance are woven to be at the heart of the Tufa life. Love it!