It's tricky to say what I thought of the denouement of the Fairyland series. Indubitably, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making is one of the best books ever written and it sets a standard by which nothing can compare, if purely because the novelty was part of the charm. Still, Valente is probably the most inventive, logophillic writer in the current generation. And she loves her characters with a deep intensity. But, The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home feels more like a museum of Fairyland than an actual story. We go on adventures so that Valente can show off her cleverest, most beautiful creations one last time and love her most favorite characters again, but it feels distant. The stakes, which should feel serious, feel terribly shallow (and they are -- the worst that will happen is that September will go home, which in theory will happen eventually anyway. Even when Saturday starts losing his memory, the story is so busy skipping around to Pandemonium and Maude and Lye and September's Shadow and Death and...that it never really focuses on the tension that something bad is happening.

So yes, it's lovely, and yes I will finish the series (I skipped book 4 -- the Only Buying Books in Proper Bookstores and Not the Internet thing has fulfilled its deep nostalgic purpose -- in my ongoing search for the 4th book, I stumbled on this one instead (in Kramerbooks when I should have been catching the metro to NIH for a very boring symposium) and since the whole point is to restore the deep appreciation for books because they're hard to come by from my youth (and, yes, supporting locally owned bookstores), reading series out of order seemed apropos.) but it's not the paragon of speculative fiction that its predecessors were. ( )

I still loved this series, just not this book as much. Reason: I thought this could be done in two book instead of one (semi-longer) book. We are brought back to all the important characters in the previous books, but we are introduced to a new character almost in every chapter. Knowing this was the last book, I felt like some of these new characters weren't really needed. This book also didn't have the dream-like feeling/writing as the previous books. I feel like I was let down with this one. ( )

Wow. That was fast.
And I have questions. Like, a lot of them.

How the bedevil Buss and Ell happened? What happens to the Wind in the sea? (IN, not AT) Why is the ending so achingly good? (not necessarily in a good way) And please tell me not all of them actually stayed there - that would be plain rude of them.

Those are off the top of my hat. (very splendid, thank you)

Fairyland is a fabulous place, for children and grown-ups both. I shall carry its lessons and those remembered and unearth truths, keeping them close to my heart and buried deep in the marrow of the bones of my soul.
But I am also quite glad to bid farewell to this adventure. For I suspect that Narrative took to wandering a bit since Cut the Moon and had not stopped all the way till last pages of this one. (quite sure it took off and away towards the end, alas)

The series as a whole is uneven - parts wonderful, parts not quite so. And I daresay the story got rather tangled in trying to chase unpredictable, to the point where it became what it sought to avoid becoming.
Still, I think these books are a splendid addition to the uneven battleground shared by grown-ups and children alike.

FINAL VERDICT : WOULD RECOMMEND, WITH RESERVATIONS AND MUCH BEFOREHAND GRILLING ( )

A great conclusion to the series and a return to the form and fun of the first book. We're back with the characters we love, typical Fairyland hi-jinks are occurring, and, well, I'm always a sucker for a combination race/scavenger hunt.

The idea to make all the contenders for the throne race for it, and then have that race descend into chaos and murder is an idea that perfectly fits into the world of Fairyland, and I loved the duels that took place (honestly, I would have loved to have witnessed even more duels. The nature of fairies, why they were turned into tools, and their very nature was splendid and a great allusion/continuation of older fairytale's ideas of fairy as conniving evil creatures.

The romance between September and Saturday is much more developed, and I could feel that they actually liked each other as people, and not because it was required to by plot. And the fact that September did not remain Queen, but accidentally became the Green Wind, and that Saturday became the Blue Wind so that he could stay with her was well done and touching. And while it was nice to think about September's parents and how they were worried about her, they didn't really have much of a role to play in the plot.

However, I'm not sure how I feel about Blunderbuss and El. I never much liked Blunderbuss as a character, and I didn't detect anything outside of a relationship of convenience between the two of them, so the revelation that they were a couple at the end was jarring and unnecessary. And the fact that Blunderbuss became queen... well, she couldn't be any worse or unusual than any other ruler of Fairyland. But she didn't necessarily deserve it, and I'm not sure she'd be a good fit. ( )

"The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All The Way Home" schließt, wie der Titel schon vermuten lässt, die fünfbändige Reihe um September, die mit dem grünen Wind immer wieder das Fairyland besuchte und dort mannigfaltige Abenteuer zu bestehen hatte (und in die Geschichte einging).

Jedes Kapitel wird durch eine Zeichnung eingeleitet, hat neben der Nummerierung einen Kapitel-Titel und wird durch eine Art Kurzzusammenfassung des Kapitels eingeleitet - das erste Kapitel hier ist "The Queen of Fairyland And All Her Kingdoms" und die Kurzusammenfassung beginnt mit "In Which We Begin Just Precisely Where We Ended [..]". Und das wird wortwörtlich umgesetzt - September wurde am Ende des viertes Bandes zur Königin von Fairyland gekrönt, und der fünfte Band beginnt im Thronsaal, direkt nach der (eher unorthodoxen) Krönung. Da bei mir das Lesen des vierten Bandes schon etwas länger her war, hätte ich mir eine kurze Rückblende gewünscht, kam aber auch so wieder schnell in die Geschichte hinein: Septembers Recht auf die Krone wird angezweifelt, und in einem Rennen durch ganz Fairyland, auf der Suche nach dem verlorenen Herz des Fairylands. Und immer, wenn zwei Wettbewerber um die Krone zufällig am gleichen Ort landeten, gab es ein Duell, und der Verlierer schied aus dem Rennen aus.

Durch diesen Ansatz hat Catherynne M. Valente die Möglichkeit, noch einmal viele Orte und Figuren der vergangenen Bände aufzusuchen. Und die Geschichte bleibt, trotz des bewusst an viktorianischen Erzählstil angelehnten Schreibstils, durchgehend spannend. Neu ist, dass weitere menschliche Besucher auftauchen - erst kurz vor Ende werden die parallelen Erzählstränge zusammengeführt.

Meiner Meinung nach hat man mehr vom Buch, wenn man die vorhergehenden Bände kennt, es lässt sich aber auch als einzelner Band lesen. Man braucht aber etwas Ausdauer bei den häufig auftretenden Bandwurmsätzen, und Muße, um sich auf den heute eher ungewöhnlichen Schreibstil einzulassen.

Und ich will jetzt ein Wombat häkeln, nur fehlt mir noch die Anleitung. ( )