A review by megankass
The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay

3.0

A good story and interesting characters, but the author was so prone to rambling on with romantic imagery that it was impossible to understand what was going on. There are five main characters (yay ensemble book!) we supposed to follow, and we follow them, until all of a sudden, nope!, following someone else now without any context to how they fit into the storyline. But if we wait and read through ten pages of their personal history, maybe they'll talk to a character who will talk to a character we're supposed to care about. Eventually each character's relevance is proven, but not before you have to dedicate way too much time to reading their book first. Kay did get better about this towards the end of the book, so I'm hoping it was more of a really, really long setup and now the plot is underway. This book ended very abruptly, so if there's any chance of finding out what's going on, book 2 will be required.

Spoiler

And now for the spoilery bits because I really need to say them. Of the five Earth humans who were brought to Fionavar, some of them clearly had a purpose, others, none at all. First David has to be the outcast who gets separated from the group because he can't trust in their friendship. Okay, interesting arch. Then Kevin and Paul go on a quest of absolutely no importance to other than to entertain a party hard prince. Kim goes off to become a seer and is the first to have a true purpose. When that's randomly finished, Paul gives in to his suicidal urges and decides to be a human sacrifice, tying himself into Fionavar. And Kevin hangs around doing nothing important. And Jennifer hangs around. And does nothing. The whole time. And gets captured. And is only mentioned again once her really bad day is about to become a Terry Goodkind kind of bad day. Was her only purpose to be the damsel? Why bother? So only Paul and Kim have any role in Fionavar other than establishing a lot of deep friendships ridiculously quickly with the natives?

Considering this wasn't a very girly book, an extra star for the random unicorn and its awesome appearance.