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Newford #8
The Onion Girl
In his stunning novels of magic and danger in the modern world, Charles de Lint has brought an entire imaginary North American city to vivid life: Newford, where magic lights the dark streets, myths walk clothed in modern shapes, and a broad cast of extraordinary people work to keep the whole world turning. At the center of it all stands a young artist named Jilly Coppercorn, with her tangled hair and paint-splattered jeans, whose paintings capture the hidden beings that dwell in the city's shadows.
Audio CD
First published January 1, 2001
194 people are currently reading
4557 people want to read
About the author
Charles de Lint
446 books3,998 followersCharles de Lint is the much beloved author of more than seventy adult, young adult, and children's books. Renowned as one of the trailblazers of the modern fantasy genre, he is the recipient of the World Fantasy, Aurora, Sunburst, and White Pine awards, among others. Modern Library's Top 100 Books of the 20th Century poll, conducted by Random House and voted on by readers, put eight of de Lint's books among the top 100.
De Lint is a poet, folklorist, artist, songwriter and performer. He has written critical essays, music reviews, opinion columns and entries to encyclopedias, and he's been the main book reviewer for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction since 1987. De Lint served as Writer-in-residence for two public libraries in Ottawa and has taught creative writing workshops for adults and children in Canada and the United States. He's been a judge for several prominent awards, including the Nebula, World Fantasy, Theodore Sturgeon and Bram Stoker.
Born in the Netherlands in 1951, de Lint immigrated to Canada with his family as an infant. The family moved often during de Lint's childhood because of his father's job with an international surveying company, but by the time Charles was twelve—having lived in Western Canada, Turkey and Lebanon—they had settled in Lucerne, Quebec, not far from where he now resides in Ottawa, Ontario.
In 1980, de Lint married the love of his life, MaryAnn Harris, who works closely with him as his first editor, business manager and creative partner. They share their love and home with a cheery little dog named Johnny Cash.
Charles de Lint is best described as a romantic: a believer in compassion, hope and human potential. His skilled portrayal of character and settings has earned him a loyal readership and glowing praise from peers, reviewers and readers.
Charles de Lint writes like a magician. He draws out the strange inside our own world, weaving stories that feel more real than we are when we read them. He is, simply put, the best.
—Holly Black (bestselling author)
Charles de Lint is the modern master of urban fantasy. Folktale, myth, fairy tale, dreams, urban legend—all of it adds up to pure magic in de Lint's vivid, original world. No one does it better.
—Alice Hoffman (bestselling author)
To read de Lint is to fall under the spell of a master storyteller, to be reminded of the greatness of life, of the beauty and majesty lurking in shadows and empty doorways.
—Quill & Quire
His Newford books, which make up most of de Lint's body of work between 1993 and 2009, confirmed his reputation for bringing a vivid setting and repertory cast of characters to life on the page. Though not a consecutive series, the twenty-five standalone books set in (or connected to) Newford give readers a feeling of visiting a favourite city and seeing old friends.
More recently, his young adult Wildlings trilogy—Under My Skin, Over My Head, and Out of This World—came out from Penguin Canada and Triskell Press in 2012, 2013 and 2014. Under My Skin won 2013 Aurora Award. A novel for middle-grade readers, The Cats of Tanglewood Forest, published by Little Brown in 2013, won the Sunburst Award, earned starred reviews in both Publishers Weekly and Quill & Quire, and was chosen by the New York Times Editors as one of the top six children's books for 2013. His most recent adult novel, The Mystery of Grace (2009), is a fascinating ghost story about love, passion and faith. It was a finalist for both the Sunburst and Evergreen awards.
De Lint is presently writing a new adult novel. His storytelling skills also shine in his original songs. He and MaryAnn (also a musician) recently released companion CDs of their original songs, samples of which can be heard on de Lin
De Lint is a poet, folklorist, artist, songwriter and performer. He has written critical essays, music reviews, opinion columns and entries to encyclopedias, and he's been the main book reviewer for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction since 1987. De Lint served as Writer-in-residence for two public libraries in Ottawa and has taught creative writing workshops for adults and children in Canada and the United States. He's been a judge for several prominent awards, including the Nebula, World Fantasy, Theodore Sturgeon and Bram Stoker.
Born in the Netherlands in 1951, de Lint immigrated to Canada with his family as an infant. The family moved often during de Lint's childhood because of his father's job with an international surveying company, but by the time Charles was twelve—having lived in Western Canada, Turkey and Lebanon—they had settled in Lucerne, Quebec, not far from where he now resides in Ottawa, Ontario.
In 1980, de Lint married the love of his life, MaryAnn Harris, who works closely with him as his first editor, business manager and creative partner. They share their love and home with a cheery little dog named Johnny Cash.
Charles de Lint is best described as a romantic: a believer in compassion, hope and human potential. His skilled portrayal of character and settings has earned him a loyal readership and glowing praise from peers, reviewers and readers.
Charles de Lint writes like a magician. He draws out the strange inside our own world, weaving stories that feel more real than we are when we read them. He is, simply put, the best.
—Holly Black (bestselling author)
Charles de Lint is the modern master of urban fantasy. Folktale, myth, fairy tale, dreams, urban legend—all of it adds up to pure magic in de Lint's vivid, original world. No one does it better.
—Alice Hoffman (bestselling author)
To read de Lint is to fall under the spell of a master storyteller, to be reminded of the greatness of life, of the beauty and majesty lurking in shadows and empty doorways.
—Quill & Quire
His Newford books, which make up most of de Lint's body of work between 1993 and 2009, confirmed his reputation for bringing a vivid setting and repertory cast of characters to life on the page. Though not a consecutive series, the twenty-five standalone books set in (or connected to) Newford give readers a feeling of visiting a favourite city and seeing old friends.
More recently, his young adult Wildlings trilogy—Under My Skin, Over My Head, and Out of This World—came out from Penguin Canada and Triskell Press in 2012, 2013 and 2014. Under My Skin won 2013 Aurora Award. A novel for middle-grade readers, The Cats of Tanglewood Forest, published by Little Brown in 2013, won the Sunburst Award, earned starred reviews in both Publishers Weekly and Quill & Quire, and was chosen by the New York Times Editors as one of the top six children's books for 2013. His most recent adult novel, The Mystery of Grace (2009), is a fascinating ghost story about love, passion and faith. It was a finalist for both the Sunburst and Evergreen awards.
De Lint is presently writing a new adult novel. His storytelling skills also shine in his original songs. He and MaryAnn (also a musician) recently released companion CDs of their original songs, samples of which can be heard on de Lin
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 492 reviews
April 3, 2018
Charles de Lint tells a vivid, Bradburyesque tale of contemporary fantasy in his Newford cycle of stories.
To be sure, this has the tone and style of the Grandmaster and a demonstration of his great imagination, but de Lint has given us a very mature story with adult themes and a setting of hard lives and difficult choices.
Jilly Coppercorn, a talented artist of faerie inspiration, and her younger sister Raelean have lost years from each others lives, but share a horrific and dysfunctional family origin. Both fled from the abusive home but in different ways and de Lint spares no details in his description of the depravity and recklessness of both women’s lives.
But they also share the dream world, a place removed from our own and populated with spirits from multiple mythos and belief systems and even characters born from the fiction of artists. De Lint’s extraordinary talent and skill makes this world building come alive and his characterization and dialogue are compelling and mesmerizing. He has crafted a rich tapestry of magical detail and backstory to compliment the difficult process of reconciliation and absolution between the two women.
Fantasy fans who have yet to read de Lint are missing out and this would be a good start, though be mindful of the sometimes disturbing themes (this is NOT YA fantasy).
Good book.
To be sure, this has the tone and style of the Grandmaster and a demonstration of his great imagination, but de Lint has given us a very mature story with adult themes and a setting of hard lives and difficult choices.
Jilly Coppercorn, a talented artist of faerie inspiration, and her younger sister Raelean have lost years from each others lives, but share a horrific and dysfunctional family origin. Both fled from the abusive home but in different ways and de Lint spares no details in his description of the depravity and recklessness of both women’s lives.
But they also share the dream world, a place removed from our own and populated with spirits from multiple mythos and belief systems and even characters born from the fiction of artists. De Lint’s extraordinary talent and skill makes this world building come alive and his characterization and dialogue are compelling and mesmerizing. He has crafted a rich tapestry of magical detail and backstory to compliment the difficult process of reconciliation and absolution between the two women.
Fantasy fans who have yet to read de Lint are missing out and this would be a good start, though be mindful of the sometimes disturbing themes (this is NOT YA fantasy).
Good book.
June 29, 2017
I've read a fair number of Charles de Lint's books now - eleven at last count - and have been very aware of the darkness at the edges of many of his stories. While this one doesn't quite meet Mulengro in terms of pure horror, or even Moonheart's more fantastical evil, The Onion Girl is probably the darkest yet, because it deals with an especially human brand of awful.
Finding out Jilly's backstory is bittersweet. We now know where she comes from, and can greater appreciate her strength of spirit, but it brings revelations that are less than welcome, both for the characters and the reader. Luckily de Lint is skilled at countering darkness with light, and there is a fey calm running through the heart of this novel that makes for a captivating read.
NOTE: I've just discovered there are audiobooks of a few of de Lint's novels - including this one. The dilemma is: will it give another lovely insight and angle to his writing, or ruin my own imaginings of the world of Newford?
Finding out Jilly's backstory is bittersweet. We now know where she comes from, and can greater appreciate her strength of spirit, but it brings revelations that are less than welcome, both for the characters and the reader. Luckily de Lint is skilled at countering darkness with light, and there is a fey calm running through the heart of this novel that makes for a captivating read.
NOTE: I've just discovered there are audiobooks of a few of de Lint's novels - including this one. The dilemma is: will it give another lovely insight and angle to his writing, or ruin my own imaginings of the world of Newford?
August 9, 2012
This isn’t a fantasy novel because it takes place half on Earth and half in a Spirit World that exists as a backdrop to all of reality. This isn’t a fantasy novel because it features wolf-headed, shape-shifting original people and crow girls. No, this isn’t a fantasy novel because there are fairies and Native American Earth spirits who share their wisdom. This is a fantasy novel because most of the characters in the story give a shit about each other.
That’s right. Pretty far-fetched, huh? de Lint creates a magical world around the main character, Jilly Coppercorn, where she and her extensive collection of (let me say, roughly … ten) friends are almost unbearably sensitive and thoughtful toward each other. I’m not talking about parent-child relationships here or lovers. I’m talking about an extended group of friends who listen to each other, visit each other frequently, and deeply care about each other. Now that’s a goddamn magical world. Do I sound cynical? Wish I lived there.
For the first two-thirds of The Onion Girl, I was thoroughly enjoying the writing, and my excitement was building. de Lint seemed to be masterfully shaping the plot and building it toward an awesome collision between Jilly and Raylene, two sisters, one with inner light and the other with inner darkness. The good sister, in some ways, too good to be true. The dark sister, a violent con artist. It is perhaps because the energy deflated out of this conflict, the amazing collision failing to materialize as dramatically as I had hoped, that my doubts about the story came more into relief.
The Onion Girl’s world felt a little bit … precious. Those friendships too perfect, Jilly too perfect, too goody-two shoes. Her persona ended up feeling just too good to be true and that left an artificial flavor in my mouth. Mind you, there’s a split personality at work here, in more ways than one. On one hand, the story is about friendships. On the other hand, it about the realistically portrayed horrors of sexual abuse. And the suffering the abuse caused was not soft-pedaled. But there was such an excessive contrast between the pristine goodness of the recovered Jilly and her sister Raylene that it had the effect of making the goodness seem sappy and even prissy.
I was also taken out of the story by the humor within the narrative. Or I should say, attempted humor. After a while, I began to notice that all of the various characters’ witticisms fell flat. None of them cracked a smile on my face nor did they come across as credibly humorous enough to make another character laugh. It made me feel as though every character in The Onion Girl considered Marmaduke to be the height of comedy.
I interpreted the primary theme of the book as recovery. Recovery and related subjects—redemption and forgiveness or the lack thereof. de Lint explores how sexual abuse can drive people to commit terrible acts, both self-destructive acts and other destructive acts. And how some people grow through them and turn their lives around while others never make it through the tunnel of pain. Moderate plot spoilers (but not the ending) follow:
What was unusual and rather inspirational about this book was how it dealt with real-world issues directly within a fantasy genre. So often fantasy novels deal with fantastical issues that only tangentially or metaphorically relate to real-world matters. I also enjoyed the writing. de Lint knows how to turn a sentence and construct scenic descriptions. I could picture all the events as he described them. Just as the Onion Girl felt as though she had numerous negative issues to deal with under her sugar-coated outer layer, I found layers of negative and positive qualities to this story. I didn’t cry. I was just disappointed.
That’s right. Pretty far-fetched, huh? de Lint creates a magical world around the main character, Jilly Coppercorn, where she and her extensive collection of (let me say, roughly … ten) friends are almost unbearably sensitive and thoughtful toward each other. I’m not talking about parent-child relationships here or lovers. I’m talking about an extended group of friends who listen to each other, visit each other frequently, and deeply care about each other. Now that’s a goddamn magical world. Do I sound cynical? Wish I lived there.
For the first two-thirds of The Onion Girl, I was thoroughly enjoying the writing, and my excitement was building. de Lint seemed to be masterfully shaping the plot and building it toward an awesome collision between Jilly and Raylene, two sisters, one with inner light and the other with inner darkness. The good sister, in some ways, too good to be true. The dark sister, a violent con artist. It is perhaps because the energy deflated out of this conflict, the amazing collision failing to materialize as dramatically as I had hoped, that my doubts about the story came more into relief.
The Onion Girl’s world felt a little bit … precious. Those friendships too perfect, Jilly too perfect, too goody-two shoes. Her persona ended up feeling just too good to be true and that left an artificial flavor in my mouth. Mind you, there’s a split personality at work here, in more ways than one. On one hand, the story is about friendships. On the other hand, it about the realistically portrayed horrors of sexual abuse. And the suffering the abuse caused was not soft-pedaled. But there was such an excessive contrast between the pristine goodness of the recovered Jilly and her sister Raylene that it had the effect of making the goodness seem sappy and even prissy.
I was also taken out of the story by the humor within the narrative. Or I should say, attempted humor. After a while, I began to notice that all of the various characters’ witticisms fell flat. None of them cracked a smile on my face nor did they come across as credibly humorous enough to make another character laugh. It made me feel as though every character in The Onion Girl considered Marmaduke to be the height of comedy.
I interpreted the primary theme of the book as recovery. Recovery and related subjects—redemption and forgiveness or the lack thereof. de Lint explores how sexual abuse can drive people to commit terrible acts, both self-destructive acts and other destructive acts. And how some people grow through them and turn their lives around while others never make it through the tunnel of pain. Moderate plot spoilers (but not the ending) follow:
What was unusual and rather inspirational about this book was how it dealt with real-world issues directly within a fantasy genre. So often fantasy novels deal with fantastical issues that only tangentially or metaphorically relate to real-world matters. I also enjoyed the writing. de Lint knows how to turn a sentence and construct scenic descriptions. I could picture all the events as he described them. Just as the Onion Girl felt as though she had numerous negative issues to deal with under her sugar-coated outer layer, I found layers of negative and positive qualities to this story. I didn’t cry. I was just disappointed.
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March 21, 2022So What’s It About?
In novel after novel, and story after story, Charles de Lint has brought an entire imaginary North American city to vivid life. Newford: where magic lights dark streets; where myths walk clothed in modern shapes; where a broad cast of extraordinary and affecting people work to keep the whole world turning.
At the center of all the entwined lives in Newford stands a young artist named Jilly Coppercorn, with her tangled hair, her paint-splattered jeans, a smile perpetually on her lips--Jilly, whose paintings capture the hidden beings that dwell in the city's shadows. Now, at last, de Lint tells Jilly's own story...for behind the painter's fey charm lies a dark secret and a past she's labored to forget. And that past is coming to claim her now.
"I'm the onion girl," Jilly Coppercorn says. "Pull back the layers of my life, and you won't find anything at the core. Just a broken child. A hollow girl." She's very, very good at running. But life has just forced Jilly to stop.
What I Thought
In this book, Jilly’s story is told alongside her sister Raylene’s; Jilly was sexually abused by their brother before running away as a child, at which point their brother turned to abusing Raylene instead. Their lives took very different paths after that point, and then they reunited in this book.
My feelings about this one are very mixed. I’ve never read anything by Charles De Lint before, and I’m not totally sure his style is for me. To start off, book’s humor was not for me and made me cringe more than it made me smile or laugh. One example of many:
“You should tell Lou,” Wendy said. “It might be a clue.” She laughed. “I’m rhyming again.”
Sophie smiled. “Well, you are our resident poet.”
“I do try. Maybe I should become a DJ. Rappin’ Wendy, she’s really quite friendly.”
A running joke that really didn’t land for me was how horny Jilly’s gnome friend Toby was. The book was determined to mention that Toby got an erection nearly every time Jilly touched him, and he introduced himself to her by declaring that he had a penis…it’s one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever read, and it really did not work for me, particularly in a book trying to deal sensitively with the topic of Jilly’s healing from sexual violation.
It’s clear that the book’s heart is in the right place and I think it succeeds in a number of ways when dealing with the topic of trauma, but a few of its “message” moments felt just a little too on the nose for me, like they belonged on RAINN.org instead of in a fantasy novel:
“Children are the brightest treasures we bring forth into this world, but too large a percentage of the population continues to treat them as inconveniences and nuisances, when they’re not treating them as possessions or toys.”
“Jilly wanted to reach out and hold her, but knew too well how the physical contact of comfort could too easily be misconstrued as an invasion of the private space an abused victim sometimes so desperately needed to maintain.”
“She hadn’t had a brother who’d abuser her, a mother who’d deserted her, or any of the horrible things that seemed to have happened to two out of any three of the women they knew.”
I love that Jilly has created a new family for herself, and it’s very clear that their love and support are a huge part of why she was able to survive and thrive after her incredibly difficult early life. The actual friends themselves, however, tend to blur together into an indistinct mass of Really Nice People who were more or less interchangeable personality-wise. The main exception to this is her friend Joe, a Native American man who is able to traverse the Otherworld with a great deal of skill. Joe is probably the most interesting character in the book besides Raylene, and I wanted to point out this article analyzing how De Lint’s incorporation of indigenous mythologies evolved over the course of his work from being stereotypical to something more meaningful and respectful of indigenous sovereignty. It doesn’t talk about The Onion Girl specifically, but I thought it was a good read.
I don’t tend to enjoy urban fantasy as much as other kinds of fantasy, and I think this book helped me realize why that is - the magical elements that I love in fantasy feel more mundane to me in modern settings/when they come into contact with modern settings. The only real exception to this in The Onion Girl is probably the conversation that Jilly and Raylene had with Grace/Choice at the very end of the book, which felt properly wondrous and strange.
The strongest part of the story is Raylene’s portion by far. Her voice is distinct and unique and her cynical, tough-as-nails personality shines through during her life of crime and beyond. There’s a lot to her character, from her lifelong friendship with Pinky to her one good romantic relationship and the interest in programming that came from it. I wasn’t totally sure how I felt about the “lesson” that it seemed she was supposed to learn, which was to come to terms with the fact that the way her life turned out was her “own damn fault” instead of blaming everything on Jilly abandoning her.
But I think, ultimately, what De Lint is trying to convey is more complicated than that - at the very end of the book, Raylene had a conversation with the barkeep at the Inn of the Star-Crossed and he encouraged her to have compassion for herself, which turned out to be exactly what she needed to hear. Jilly said that she was lucky to have ended up in a better place than Raylene because she got help “like in a fairy tale” while Raylene didn’t, and Raylene ultimately realized that Jilly’s choice to run away was one made by a desperate child who should not be blamed for anything. They both ended up in a place beyond attributing the other fault or blame, and they seemed to realize that they each simply did the best that they could with what they were given at the time. Their complex relationship is definitely another of the book’s strengths, and it still wasn’t perfect by the end, which I really appreciate. There was definitely hope for Raylene’s future (and I loved that she rescued another girl from her town), and De Lint wrote this in a way that feels the opposite of disingenuous to me.
As a final note, the part of the story detailing Jilly’s early life and adult Jilly taking care of a pregnant runaway was actually a short story at first (and it featured in The Armless Maiden: And Other Tales for Childhood's Survivors, which I read earlier this year) and it was kind of obvious that it had just been awkwardly placed in the middle of this novel. De Lint said in his afterward that he did this because he simply didn’t feel that he could rewrite the horrible things that Jilly went through; I definitely understand this, but the result feels a little awkward. The other interesting thing about his afterward is that it features a ton of recommendations for the reading and music that inspired De Lint while he was writing.
In novel after novel, and story after story, Charles de Lint has brought an entire imaginary North American city to vivid life. Newford: where magic lights dark streets; where myths walk clothed in modern shapes; where a broad cast of extraordinary and affecting people work to keep the whole world turning.
At the center of all the entwined lives in Newford stands a young artist named Jilly Coppercorn, with her tangled hair, her paint-splattered jeans, a smile perpetually on her lips--Jilly, whose paintings capture the hidden beings that dwell in the city's shadows. Now, at last, de Lint tells Jilly's own story...for behind the painter's fey charm lies a dark secret and a past she's labored to forget. And that past is coming to claim her now.
"I'm the onion girl," Jilly Coppercorn says. "Pull back the layers of my life, and you won't find anything at the core. Just a broken child. A hollow girl." She's very, very good at running. But life has just forced Jilly to stop.
What I Thought
In this book, Jilly’s story is told alongside her sister Raylene’s; Jilly was sexually abused by their brother before running away as a child, at which point their brother turned to abusing Raylene instead. Their lives took very different paths after that point, and then they reunited in this book.
My feelings about this one are very mixed. I’ve never read anything by Charles De Lint before, and I’m not totally sure his style is for me. To start off, book’s humor was not for me and made me cringe more than it made me smile or laugh. One example of many:
“You should tell Lou,” Wendy said. “It might be a clue.” She laughed. “I’m rhyming again.”
Sophie smiled. “Well, you are our resident poet.”
“I do try. Maybe I should become a DJ. Rappin’ Wendy, she’s really quite friendly.”
A running joke that really didn’t land for me was how horny Jilly’s gnome friend Toby was. The book was determined to mention that Toby got an erection nearly every time Jilly touched him, and he introduced himself to her by declaring that he had a penis…it’s one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever read, and it really did not work for me, particularly in a book trying to deal sensitively with the topic of Jilly’s healing from sexual violation.
It’s clear that the book’s heart is in the right place and I think it succeeds in a number of ways when dealing with the topic of trauma, but a few of its “message” moments felt just a little too on the nose for me, like they belonged on RAINN.org instead of in a fantasy novel:
“Children are the brightest treasures we bring forth into this world, but too large a percentage of the population continues to treat them as inconveniences and nuisances, when they’re not treating them as possessions or toys.”
“Jilly wanted to reach out and hold her, but knew too well how the physical contact of comfort could too easily be misconstrued as an invasion of the private space an abused victim sometimes so desperately needed to maintain.”
“She hadn’t had a brother who’d abuser her, a mother who’d deserted her, or any of the horrible things that seemed to have happened to two out of any three of the women they knew.”
I love that Jilly has created a new family for herself, and it’s very clear that their love and support are a huge part of why she was able to survive and thrive after her incredibly difficult early life. The actual friends themselves, however, tend to blur together into an indistinct mass of Really Nice People who were more or less interchangeable personality-wise. The main exception to this is her friend Joe, a Native American man who is able to traverse the Otherworld with a great deal of skill. Joe is probably the most interesting character in the book besides Raylene, and I wanted to point out this article analyzing how De Lint’s incorporation of indigenous mythologies evolved over the course of his work from being stereotypical to something more meaningful and respectful of indigenous sovereignty. It doesn’t talk about The Onion Girl specifically, but I thought it was a good read.
I don’t tend to enjoy urban fantasy as much as other kinds of fantasy, and I think this book helped me realize why that is - the magical elements that I love in fantasy feel more mundane to me in modern settings/when they come into contact with modern settings. The only real exception to this in The Onion Girl is probably the conversation that Jilly and Raylene had with Grace/Choice at the very end of the book, which felt properly wondrous and strange.
The strongest part of the story is Raylene’s portion by far. Her voice is distinct and unique and her cynical, tough-as-nails personality shines through during her life of crime and beyond. There’s a lot to her character, from her lifelong friendship with Pinky to her one good romantic relationship and the interest in programming that came from it. I wasn’t totally sure how I felt about the “lesson” that it seemed she was supposed to learn, which was to come to terms with the fact that the way her life turned out was her “own damn fault” instead of blaming everything on Jilly abandoning her.
But I think, ultimately, what De Lint is trying to convey is more complicated than that - at the very end of the book, Raylene had a conversation with the barkeep at the Inn of the Star-Crossed and he encouraged her to have compassion for herself, which turned out to be exactly what she needed to hear. Jilly said that she was lucky to have ended up in a better place than Raylene because she got help “like in a fairy tale” while Raylene didn’t, and Raylene ultimately realized that Jilly’s choice to run away was one made by a desperate child who should not be blamed for anything. They both ended up in a place beyond attributing the other fault or blame, and they seemed to realize that they each simply did the best that they could with what they were given at the time. Their complex relationship is definitely another of the book’s strengths, and it still wasn’t perfect by the end, which I really appreciate. There was definitely hope for Raylene’s future (and I loved that she rescued another girl from her town), and De Lint wrote this in a way that feels the opposite of disingenuous to me.
As a final note, the part of the story detailing Jilly’s early life and adult Jilly taking care of a pregnant runaway was actually a short story at first (and it featured in The Armless Maiden: And Other Tales for Childhood's Survivors, which I read earlier this year) and it was kind of obvious that it had just been awkwardly placed in the middle of this novel. De Lint said in his afterward that he did this because he simply didn’t feel that he could rewrite the horrible things that Jilly went through; I definitely understand this, but the result feels a little awkward. The other interesting thing about his afterward is that it features a ton of recommendations for the reading and music that inspired De Lint while he was writing.
March 24, 2020
3.5 stars
So good, but so hard to read because of the This is the real-est magical realism I've ever read, and I'm not sure if that's a compliment or an accusation right at this moment because getting through this book took work. I certainly didn't expect magical realism to be this real. Didn't know that it could get this real.
That aside, my main issue with this book was not knowing where it was going. The writing was at times sharp and hard hitting, but also dreamy and lyrical; other times, it was slow moving and seemed to be going in circles or nowhere. I couldn't figure out where it was leading or what it was setting up for until I was over halfway through. At this point I imagine is where most people would've given up if this book had been their entry point into the Newford series, but since I'm a completionist by nature and this was a buddy read with Beth, I pushed on.
Not sure if I can say that the effort paid off or that the ending is worth the struggle that came before it, but I can confirm that the characters do grow on you and you do end up caring about them before you realize what's happening. I get now what other reviewers mean when they call these books spellbinding--they pull you in bit by bit and you don't realize it until you reach the end.
Objectively speaking, I have immense appreciation for this book and the depth and range of Charles de Lint's writing, and I plan to go back and start the Newford series from the beginning one day. But subjectively? I will probably, most definitely, never read this volume again. Not even to refresh my memory.
Grand Marais, Lake Superior
* * * * *
Cross-posted at https://covers2covers.wordpress.com/2...
“There's more to life than just surviving . . . but . . . sometimes just surviving is all you get”
So good, but so hard to read because of the This is the real-est magical realism I've ever read, and I'm not sure if that's a compliment or an accusation right at this moment because getting through this book took work. I certainly didn't expect magical realism to be this real. Didn't know that it could get this real.
That aside, my main issue with this book was not knowing where it was going. The writing was at times sharp and hard hitting, but also dreamy and lyrical; other times, it was slow moving and seemed to be going in circles or nowhere. I couldn't figure out where it was leading or what it was setting up for until I was over halfway through. At this point I imagine is where most people would've given up if this book had been their entry point into the Newford series, but since I'm a completionist by nature and this was a buddy read with Beth, I pushed on.
Not sure if I can say that the effort paid off or that the ending is worth the struggle that came before it, but I can confirm that the characters do grow on you and you do end up caring about them before you realize what's happening. I get now what other reviewers mean when they call these books spellbinding--they pull you in bit by bit and you don't realize it until you reach the end.
Objectively speaking, I have immense appreciation for this book and the depth and range of Charles de Lint's writing, and I plan to go back and start the Newford series from the beginning one day. But subjectively? I will probably, most definitely, never read this volume again. Not even to refresh my memory.
“I suppose the other thing too many forget is that we were all stories once, each and every one of us. And we remain stories. But too often we allow those stories to grow banal, or cruel or unconnected to each other. We allow the stories to continue, but they no longer have a heart. They no longer sustain us.”
Grand Marais, Lake Superior
* * * * *
Cross-posted at https://covers2covers.wordpress.com/2...
September 5, 2007
This is the book where Charles de Lint delves into the history of everyones favorite character: Jilly Coppercorn. It goes into how she came to be the person she is, and the catalyst that forces her to come to terms with her past. We find "magical-so-open-minded-her-brain-may-fall-out" Jilly has an unfortunate past that is echoed in many womens lives. The book also weaves together the colorful collection of characters de Lint has created over the years in his Newford short stories.
I prefer de Lints short story anthologies to his novels because he has a habit of creating half a dozen plot arcs going that come to a head near the end. It's like that with ALL his novels. He pulls the reader along with several different characters and/or character groups and while the benefit is seeing the different character perspectives, it can be distracting. From chapter to chapter you will often find yourself thinking "where are we again?".
I would recommend interested parties read three of de Lint's Newford anthologies (in order: Dreams Underfoot, The Ivory and the Horn, and Moonlight and Vines) before embarking on any of his novels; it will provide the reader with background on the characters. While de Lint's Newford novels can be read without prior knowledge of his world and characters, it can help add to the readers understanding of the characters histories. Those who have read those anthologies will find it a little irritating having to read boiled down tangents of character history in the novels...at least I did.
I prefer de Lints short story anthologies to his novels because he has a habit of creating half a dozen plot arcs going that come to a head near the end. It's like that with ALL his novels. He pulls the reader along with several different characters and/or character groups and while the benefit is seeing the different character perspectives, it can be distracting. From chapter to chapter you will often find yourself thinking "where are we again?".
I would recommend interested parties read three of de Lint's Newford anthologies (in order: Dreams Underfoot, The Ivory and the Horn, and Moonlight and Vines) before embarking on any of his novels; it will provide the reader with background on the characters. While de Lint's Newford novels can be read without prior knowledge of his world and characters, it can help add to the readers understanding of the characters histories. Those who have read those anthologies will find it a little irritating having to read boiled down tangents of character history in the novels...at least I did.
August 22, 2007
Once upon a time...
Once upon a time...
Once upon a time...
What a clunker. I heard from the rest of the bookclub ladies that it wasn't great, but I was willing to give it a chance. Mistake.
I made it to page 49 and refused to proceed any further after reading this dreck:
"I believe in a different kind of magic," Sophie said. "The kind we make between each other. The kind that comes from our art and how it can change us. The world doesn't need any more than that."
Ugh. Irritating FruitCakey Artistes who love faeries and travel to the dreamlands and are "small, fierce women." Ugh, again.
This is the kind of tripe that gives fantasy a bad name.
Also, the name of the main character is JILLY? Seriously.
Once upon a time...
Once upon a time...
What a clunker. I heard from the rest of the bookclub ladies that it wasn't great, but I was willing to give it a chance. Mistake.
I made it to page 49 and refused to proceed any further after reading this dreck:
"I believe in a different kind of magic," Sophie said. "The kind we make between each other. The kind that comes from our art and how it can change us. The world doesn't need any more than that."
Ugh. Irritating FruitCakey Artistes who love faeries and travel to the dreamlands and are "small, fierce women." Ugh, again.
This is the kind of tripe that gives fantasy a bad name.
Also, the name of the main character is JILLY? Seriously.
February 18, 2013
As I’ve mentioned before, while I’m a fantasy fan, I am very much a selective fantasy fan. Mr. De Lint is one of those fantasy authors – in his case urban fantasy – whom I have read before and I will definitely read again. There is a solid dose of realism to his fantasy fiction, the type of gritty biting edge, in places, that I adore. His characters are far from perfect (as characters should be in order for me to be able to relate to them), they go through great struggles and pain and they don’t always come out on the other end smelling like a rose. There is solid substance to this fantasy, not just spectacle and pageantry.
That being said, while I loved this book, it may not appeal to everyone. It is not a fast-paced read, nor is it a whimsical or flighty adventure filled with action. It certainly has its tense moments. It opens with a terrible accident and there are multiple incidents involving crime and violence, but much of the book is placid, emotional and introspective. It can also be a little difficult to follow at times because the narrative jumps around from real world to dream world and follows more than one character and chronology. I read it in drips and drabs between other things I was reading for review purposes and sometimes I found myself a little lost when I returned to it, having to back track a little to figure out where, when and with whom I was.
As a whole I think this is a wonderful book and well deserving of the World Fantasy Award. I’m fortunate enough to have a signed copy which I bought when Mr. de Lint made a local appearance here. The story is as multi-layered as the onion mentioned in the title and in my opinion, a firm five-star read.
That being said, while I loved this book, it may not appeal to everyone. It is not a fast-paced read, nor is it a whimsical or flighty adventure filled with action. It certainly has its tense moments. It opens with a terrible accident and there are multiple incidents involving crime and violence, but much of the book is placid, emotional and introspective. It can also be a little difficult to follow at times because the narrative jumps around from real world to dream world and follows more than one character and chronology. I read it in drips and drabs between other things I was reading for review purposes and sometimes I found myself a little lost when I returned to it, having to back track a little to figure out where, when and with whom I was.
As a whole I think this is a wonderful book and well deserving of the World Fantasy Award. I’m fortunate enough to have a signed copy which I bought when Mr. de Lint made a local appearance here. The story is as multi-layered as the onion mentioned in the title and in my opinion, a firm five-star read.
November 18, 2008
An amazing book that I did not want to let go of once I started the first paragraph. The story of Jilly, her incapacitating accident, healing old wounds, and adventures in the otherworld (or dreamland or whatever you prefer), of course. Unforgettable characters that question what it means to be bad or good and what causes those circumstances.
Be warned though that this book deals pretty heavily with sexual abuse/molestation and difficult backgrounds including homelessness, violence, and prostitution. I wasn't expecting it, but strangely I was not as blindsided by it as I usually am. The subject is treated wonderfully, healing and helping others being the foremost topics. To be honest I was surprised how well he wrote about some of these topics from a woman's point of view, and I appreciate that as well.
The Onion Girl was a powerful read that had a wonderful and active plot never stopping too much to breathe. If there wasn't physical action or suspense going on, there was active inner dialogue or turmoil that seamlessly took the stage and held its own. The writing style is engaging and empathetic. I love his use of different points of view.
I can't wait to read more of his work!
Be warned though that this book deals pretty heavily with sexual abuse/molestation and difficult backgrounds including homelessness, violence, and prostitution. I wasn't expecting it, but strangely I was not as blindsided by it as I usually am. The subject is treated wonderfully, healing and helping others being the foremost topics. To be honest I was surprised how well he wrote about some of these topics from a woman's point of view, and I appreciate that as well.
The Onion Girl was a powerful read that had a wonderful and active plot never stopping too much to breathe. If there wasn't physical action or suspense going on, there was active inner dialogue or turmoil that seamlessly took the stage and held its own. The writing style is engaging and empathetic. I love his use of different points of view.
I can't wait to read more of his work!
August 30, 2007
The problem with De Lint is he's just not nearly as imaginative as he thinks he is. His "flights of fancy" are flat and derivative at best. Even worse, in my mind; he can't write believable dialog, friendships, or young people. At all.
May 18, 2020
Oof. Yes. I disremember when I've identified with a protagonist so hard as I identify with Jilly. I came to this book a de Lint virgin, and now I'm going to start with Newford #1 and read them all. It was hard to read, hard to put down, hard to surface from. If you are one of the children of the secret, I recommend this highly. Provided you are in a safe place to read it, because it's a searing live thing in your hands.
October 13, 2008
I was actually rather disappointed in this book. I'd had so many people tell me I just HAD to read Charles deLint if I was interested in Urban Fantasy. This was the first book I've read by him and although it hooked me right in the first paragraph, it became quite bogged down and getting through to the end took sheer effort for me. Where he really lost me was in the middle where he gets far too pedantic and preachy. I read fantasy to escape, not to be lectured. If this is what Urban Fantasy is all about, maybe I'm not as interested in it as I thought. Everything I have read so far that is classified in that category has turned me off.
The subject of this book, Jilly, has some real social issues she's dealing with and the whole book turns into an expose on the perils of child abuse, hatred, and pack mentality. All subjects I'd rather escape from than escape to. I have a couple of other deLint books in my "to read" pile that just got relegated to the bottom of the pile. Maybe if I'm desperate someday I'll give them a look. But for now, I think I'd rather visit interesting fantasy worlds where modern issues don't exist.
The subject of this book, Jilly, has some real social issues she's dealing with and the whole book turns into an expose on the perils of child abuse, hatred, and pack mentality. All subjects I'd rather escape from than escape to. I have a couple of other deLint books in my "to read" pile that just got relegated to the bottom of the pile. Maybe if I'm desperate someday I'll give them a look. But for now, I think I'd rather visit interesting fantasy worlds where modern issues don't exist.
June 30, 2021
How I rate my books:
5 stars: I love so much I want to immediately reread after finishing and if I reread, I love it just as much the second time around
4 stars I liked a lot and might one day reread
3 stars I liked it okay but definitely will not reread
2 stars I didn't like
1 star I hated it
This was a reread. Although I appreciate the writing, as well as the world and character building, I just did not like it as much this time. I would probably not ever read it again.
It's good but just not nearly as great as De Lints masterpieces Someplace to Be Flying, Forests of the Heart and Memory and Dream.
I also much prefered his books set in the southwest like The Mystery of Grace and The Wind in His Heart.
Furthermore I would not recommend The Onion Girl to anyone who has never read De Lint before. It not a good book to start with because there is a lot of background history in the Newford short stories that one would be missing. If someone has read and liked De !ints earlier short stories that take place in Newford, then by all means they should go ahead and read this book! Like I said, it is well written. Otherwise all the books I mentioned above are standalones and are great places to start!
5 stars: I love so much I want to immediately reread after finishing and if I reread, I love it just as much the second time around
4 stars I liked a lot and might one day reread
3 stars I liked it okay but definitely will not reread
2 stars I didn't like
1 star I hated it
This was a reread. Although I appreciate the writing, as well as the world and character building, I just did not like it as much this time. I would probably not ever read it again.
It's good but just not nearly as great as De Lints masterpieces Someplace to Be Flying, Forests of the Heart and Memory and Dream.
I also much prefered his books set in the southwest like The Mystery of Grace and The Wind in His Heart.
Furthermore I would not recommend The Onion Girl to anyone who has never read De Lint before. It not a good book to start with because there is a lot of background history in the Newford short stories that one would be missing. If someone has read and liked De !ints earlier short stories that take place in Newford, then by all means they should go ahead and read this book! Like I said, it is well written. Otherwise all the books I mentioned above are standalones and are great places to start!
September 23, 2020
I make no bones about it, I love the Newford books. This was one of the hardest to read, only partly because of the small font size in the edition I had, but also because it deals with lots of aspects of the dreamlands and the relationships with the “World-As-It-Is” Jilly is one of my favourite characters and this is essentially her story. I really enjoyed it.
June 12, 2022
Excellent. Excellent, excellent, excellent!
I don't think I've ever read an urban fantasy that wasn't YA, and this was a perfect book to start with. Thanks to my dad for recommending Charles de Lint to me!
The Onion Girl is the 8th book in the Newford books, but it doesn't seem to really matter. At least, it wasn't confusing at all. As far as I can gather there isn't really a chronological order to the books, since they all follow different characters with storylines that intermingle at one point or another.
I found myself really connecting to all of the characters--even the ones whose perspective we only saw in third person (Sophie, Wendy)--even though of course I can't relate to the horrific experiences they've been through. I think it's the way the inner thoughts of the characters are written that made them so appealing to me. About half way through the book I realized that that's because of the way they analyze everything (each other, their relationships, their memories, their motivations, their morals etc.) so meticulously, all the time. That's something I definitely spend a lot of my time doing, but it's rare to see so many characters doing it in one book. At least, I haven't seen it before!
I love the idea of a dream world that anyone can get to at some point in their lives if they just figure out how, and where everyone has their heart home, and that the in-between place is where the faeries come from. I wonder what my heart home would be?
I don't want to give a lot away about the plot of this book. I'll just say: it's about two estranged sisters, one filled with guilt, one filled with rage, both filled with pain, and their separate journeys as they (purposefully or not) open themselves up to discover who they really are, what they really want, and how they really feel about each other.. It's also brilliant that all of the other characters whose perspectives we see are Jilly's friends, people who are concerned for and trying to help Jilly. It just makes it more obvious how truly alone Raylene is in the world, and how long she has been so. I'm not forgetting Pinky: to be fair to Pinky, Raylene probably would never have survived to clean herself up without her, but Pinky was also part of the messes they put themselves in after leaving Tyson. It can't be denied that she was Raylene's best friend, though.
It's also full of magic: hidden worlds, crow girls, dog-headed boys, randy little faerie men, unicorns, magic miracle trees, ancient spirits, mystery... It's excellent. Here are some quotes.
"Beauty isn't what you see on TV or in magazine ads or even necessarily in art galleries. It's a lot deeper and a lot simpler than that. It's realizing the goodness of things, it's leaving the world a little better than it was before you got here." -pg. 137
"Life's an act of magic, too. Claire Hamill sings a line in one of her songs that really sums it up for me: 'If there's no magic, there's no meaning.' Without magic--or call it wonder, mystery, natural wisdom--nothing has any depth. It's all just surface. You know: what you see is what you get. I honestly believe there's more to everything than that, whether it's a Monet hanging in a gallery or some old vagrant sleeping in an alley." -pg. 141
"It don't seem right, us growing up like that."
Pinky laughs. "When you going to figure it out, Ray? The world don't turn on right and wrong. It's just what it is and you and me, we got to make the best of it how we can." -pg. 277
Toby gives me a considering look. "I think that's sad, too."
"I guess it is, when you think about it."
"Then let's not." -pg. 369
"I guess the other thing too many people forget is that we were all stories once, each and every one of us. And we remain stories. But too often we allow those stories to grow banal, or cruel, or unconnected to each other. We allow the stories to continue, but they no longer have a heart. They no longer sustain us." -pg. 436
But I need to keep this conversation going. It's all that's keeping me from falling to pieces. I'm like a china mug, tottering on the edge of a table. A touch of wind, somebody makes the wrong move, and down I'll go a-tumbling to shatter on the floor. -pg. 450-451
But then I guess we all have a mess of one kind or another lying somewhere deep inside us. There's no such thing as a perfect life. The trick is to accept each other's weaknesses and lend our strengths when we can.
Walk large, as Joe would say.
I smile. Right now, I'd settle for just being able to walk.
But I'll aim for large. One step at a time. -pg. 497
I'm excited now--there are so many more books of Newford to read! And other books by Charles de Lint too! He may be stepping into my collection of favourite fantasy authors of all time...
I don't think I've ever read an urban fantasy that wasn't YA, and this was a perfect book to start with. Thanks to my dad for recommending Charles de Lint to me!
The Onion Girl is the 8th book in the Newford books, but it doesn't seem to really matter. At least, it wasn't confusing at all. As far as I can gather there isn't really a chronological order to the books, since they all follow different characters with storylines that intermingle at one point or another.
I found myself really connecting to all of the characters--even the ones whose perspective we only saw in third person (Sophie, Wendy)--even though of course I can't relate to the horrific experiences they've been through. I think it's the way the inner thoughts of the characters are written that made them so appealing to me. About half way through the book I realized that that's because of the way they analyze everything (each other, their relationships, their memories, their motivations, their morals etc.) so meticulously, all the time. That's something I definitely spend a lot of my time doing, but it's rare to see so many characters doing it in one book. At least, I haven't seen it before!
I love the idea of a dream world that anyone can get to at some point in their lives if they just figure out how, and where everyone has their heart home, and that the in-between place is where the faeries come from. I wonder what my heart home would be?
I don't want to give a lot away about the plot of this book. I'll just say: it's about two estranged sisters, one filled with guilt, one filled with rage, both filled with pain, and their separate journeys as they (purposefully or not) open themselves up to discover who they really are, what they really want, and how they really feel about each other.. It's also brilliant that all of the other characters whose perspectives we see are Jilly's friends, people who are concerned for and trying to help Jilly. It just makes it more obvious how truly alone Raylene is in the world, and how long she has been so. I'm not forgetting Pinky: to be fair to Pinky, Raylene probably would never have survived to clean herself up without her, but Pinky was also part of the messes they put themselves in after leaving Tyson. It can't be denied that she was Raylene's best friend, though.
It's also full of magic: hidden worlds, crow girls, dog-headed boys, randy little faerie men, unicorns, magic miracle trees, ancient spirits, mystery... It's excellent. Here are some quotes.
"Beauty isn't what you see on TV or in magazine ads or even necessarily in art galleries. It's a lot deeper and a lot simpler than that. It's realizing the goodness of things, it's leaving the world a little better than it was before you got here." -pg. 137
"Life's an act of magic, too. Claire Hamill sings a line in one of her songs that really sums it up for me: 'If there's no magic, there's no meaning.' Without magic--or call it wonder, mystery, natural wisdom--nothing has any depth. It's all just surface. You know: what you see is what you get. I honestly believe there's more to everything than that, whether it's a Monet hanging in a gallery or some old vagrant sleeping in an alley." -pg. 141
"It don't seem right, us growing up like that."
Pinky laughs. "When you going to figure it out, Ray? The world don't turn on right and wrong. It's just what it is and you and me, we got to make the best of it how we can." -pg. 277
Toby gives me a considering look. "I think that's sad, too."
"I guess it is, when you think about it."
"Then let's not." -pg. 369
"I guess the other thing too many people forget is that we were all stories once, each and every one of us. And we remain stories. But too often we allow those stories to grow banal, or cruel, or unconnected to each other. We allow the stories to continue, but they no longer have a heart. They no longer sustain us." -pg. 436
But I need to keep this conversation going. It's all that's keeping me from falling to pieces. I'm like a china mug, tottering on the edge of a table. A touch of wind, somebody makes the wrong move, and down I'll go a-tumbling to shatter on the floor. -pg. 450-451
But then I guess we all have a mess of one kind or another lying somewhere deep inside us. There's no such thing as a perfect life. The trick is to accept each other's weaknesses and lend our strengths when we can.
Walk large, as Joe would say.
I smile. Right now, I'd settle for just being able to walk.
But I'll aim for large. One step at a time. -pg. 497
I'm excited now--there are so many more books of Newford to read! And other books by Charles de Lint too! He may be stepping into my collection of favourite fantasy authors of all time...
July 10, 2008
Charles de Lint is the Man of urban fantasy writers. I really appreciate and respect his ability as a middle-aged man to return to a place of youth and wonder, as well as inhabit and develop female characters. It is impossible to not love Jilly Coppercorn. Her sister, Raylene, at first monstrous, is also supercool. De Lint eases the reader into empathy for her and and understanding of the roots of her violent, alienating, and callous ways. Joe Crazy Dog and his friends are pretty much bad asses with big hearts. An excellent read.
October 13, 2008
This book was entirely bizarre but in a good way. It's a little hard to follow at the beginning going between worlds and several different view points but once I got used to that I really enjoyed it. Raylene's narrative was tough to read but once I got to know her character even she was intriguing. I would have liked to spend more time exploring the "other world" -- maybe in the sequel?
This is a fairly complex read with many interesting characters and overall I found it a wonderful read!
This is a fairly complex read with many interesting characters and overall I found it a wonderful read!
December 24, 2008
A friend of mine introduced me to this wonderful author by giving me this book. It is a fanatastic blend of reality and fantasy. It makes magic and folklore believable and real. DeLint also tells many of his stories using the same characters, though they aren't really serial. You really get to know Jilly and her friends but you can read the books in any order. I love all of his books and urge anyone who wants to believe in magic to check them out.
August 1, 2023
It was so good to finally hear Jilly's story. It was also sad to see her broken like that. But the book is good.
May 4, 2011
more like a [9/10] but I really liked it, and since Goodreads doesn't allow half stars I went for the higher rating. de Lint gets a little New Age preachy towards the end, but since I agree with most of his rants it didn't really bothered me and the writing is very good. He also seems like a nice guy given the musical references he mentions in the intro and the computer geeky stuff that is included in the text.
I appreciate most about the book the way he managed to balance the devastating cruelness that the world inflicted on the main actors - Raylene and Jilly - with an attempt at redemption, at a positive outcome without being blind to the horrors and dangers of living at the edge of society. Next favorite theme is the role of myths and imagination / art in making us better persons, more capable of social interaction and communication. to quote the book:
"People who’ve never read fairy tales, the professor said, have a harder time coping in life than the people who have. They don’t have access to all the lessons that can be learned from the journeys through the dark woods and the kindness of strangers treated decently, the knowledge that can be gained from the company and example of Donkeyskins and cats wearing boots and steadfast tin soldiers. I’m not talking about in-your-face lessons, but more subtle ones. The kind that seep up from your sub¬conscious and give you moral and humane structures for your life. That teach you how to prevail, and trust. And maybe even love."
and
"There is no plan, no future laid out for any of us beyond what we make for ourselves."
one last comment : this is my first book by Charles de Lint. I knew it was somewhere in the middle of his ongoing saga, but I saw it mentioned as one of the best. While it can be read as a standalone, it was difficult in the beginning to cope with the large number of characters that I felt I was supposed to know about. I'm interested in reading more from the author, but I don't really have the energy and the free time to try to read them all in order. I'm not sure which volume to pick next
I appreciate most about the book the way he managed to balance the devastating cruelness that the world inflicted on the main actors - Raylene and Jilly - with an attempt at redemption, at a positive outcome without being blind to the horrors and dangers of living at the edge of society. Next favorite theme is the role of myths and imagination / art in making us better persons, more capable of social interaction and communication. to quote the book:
"People who’ve never read fairy tales, the professor said, have a harder time coping in life than the people who have. They don’t have access to all the lessons that can be learned from the journeys through the dark woods and the kindness of strangers treated decently, the knowledge that can be gained from the company and example of Donkeyskins and cats wearing boots and steadfast tin soldiers. I’m not talking about in-your-face lessons, but more subtle ones. The kind that seep up from your sub¬conscious and give you moral and humane structures for your life. That teach you how to prevail, and trust. And maybe even love."
and
"There is no plan, no future laid out for any of us beyond what we make for ourselves."
one last comment : this is my first book by Charles de Lint. I knew it was somewhere in the middle of his ongoing saga, but I saw it mentioned as one of the best. While it can be read as a standalone, it was difficult in the beginning to cope with the large number of characters that I felt I was supposed to know about. I'm interested in reading more from the author, but I don't really have the energy and the free time to try to read them all in order. I'm not sure which volume to pick next
October 11, 2018
The Onion Girl is a fantastic urban fantasy. I first stumbled upon this tome of a book when I was in my early 20’s. And I loved it. And I still love it now. I’m not ashamed to admit that I sometimes refuse to re-read books from my youth that I loved for fear I will hate them. (That’s happened on more than one occasion.)
The Onion Girl is a story about Jilly, a tragic heroine of sorts. This book delves deep into uncomfortable territory; child abuse, sexual abuse, rape, homelessness, street kids. All those things we don’t want to talk about. And it’s painful to read about them. But it’s also necessary.
As a young adult I related deeply to Jilly’s traumatic childhood, the ways in which she had a deep hurt, being a Child of the Secret. As an adult I related to The Broken Girl, who Jilly becomes after a horrible car accident. I related to the struggle to regain a sense of self after the world has knocked you on your ass. I related to the need to escape from the pain and desperation that we can feel when we’re no longer physically capable of doing the things we used to do.
Okay, serious business aside, this book is filled with amazing creatures. Crow girls and dog boys, Goddesses and sprites. Amazing fairytale lands that are just as dark as they are bright. Jokes and crude humor combined with the heaviness of internal struggles keeps this book moving just light enough without being airy.
I loved this book and always will. It’s not often that you find a book that speaks to your soul at different points in your life, for different reasons.
The Onion Girl is a story about Jilly, a tragic heroine of sorts. This book delves deep into uncomfortable territory; child abuse, sexual abuse, rape, homelessness, street kids. All those things we don’t want to talk about. And it’s painful to read about them. But it’s also necessary.
As a young adult I related deeply to Jilly’s traumatic childhood, the ways in which she had a deep hurt, being a Child of the Secret. As an adult I related to The Broken Girl, who Jilly becomes after a horrible car accident. I related to the struggle to regain a sense of self after the world has knocked you on your ass. I related to the need to escape from the pain and desperation that we can feel when we’re no longer physically capable of doing the things we used to do.
Okay, serious business aside, this book is filled with amazing creatures. Crow girls and dog boys, Goddesses and sprites. Amazing fairytale lands that are just as dark as they are bright. Jokes and crude humor combined with the heaviness of internal struggles keeps this book moving just light enough without being airy.
I loved this book and always will. It’s not often that you find a book that speaks to your soul at different points in your life, for different reasons.
April 18, 2013
I have never read anything by Charles De Lint prior to listening to The Onion Girl. It is a very good book. I was suprised at how well he mixed the faerie world into what would be considered our world. The book is dark and I saw in reviews that it was very depressing and hard to read. I would say while it is a book that deals with dark issues it is one of hope and redemption. You do have to stick with it to get to the hope and redemption.
The book deals with issues of sexual abuse, at times graphically but not pornagraphically so. It also deals with children living on the streets and the years work those who go through these experiences spend on healing and coping with the mental trauma related. I was nervous to read this because I have a very hard time when these issues are dealt with in a trite, superficial, or inaccurate manner. I am not an expert but did work in social work with these issues for a few years and found De Lint's interpretation to be believable and in a way healing. Many people who deal with childhood trauma turn to fantasy and science fiction as a release to live in another world. I was impressed with De Lint.
Apart from the topic, I also found the Onion Girl to be well written and captivating. It is a very interesting story that keeps you intrigued. I highly recommend this book.
The book deals with issues of sexual abuse, at times graphically but not pornagraphically so. It also deals with children living on the streets and the years work those who go through these experiences spend on healing and coping with the mental trauma related. I was nervous to read this because I have a very hard time when these issues are dealt with in a trite, superficial, or inaccurate manner. I am not an expert but did work in social work with these issues for a few years and found De Lint's interpretation to be believable and in a way healing. Many people who deal with childhood trauma turn to fantasy and science fiction as a release to live in another world. I was impressed with De Lint.
Apart from the topic, I also found the Onion Girl to be well written and captivating. It is a very interesting story that keeps you intrigued. I highly recommend this book.
January 14, 2021
Down to two stars after thinking about it a little bit. I was so excited to read this book and I WANTED to like it but I just...didn't?? I don't know. Felt like a slog. The final confrontation felt so anticlimactic and easy and I guess I kind of resent the line drawn between Good Survivors and Bad Survivors and even when the text dug beneath the surface of all of that it just felt........so simplified. Empty? Could not relate. Also I feel like it could have been at least 100 pages shorter.
December 1, 2008
Charles de Lint is one of the finest writers, and he writes a form of fantasy that is so accessible to people who don't necessarily want to read the fantasy that includes fairies, wizards, dragons, and castles. This is urban fantasy, it takes place primarily in our present-day world, in a city called Newford. The characters tend to be young adults, musical and artistic, well-read and complex.
April 4, 2019
Quite enjoyed this fantastic tale.
I like how de Lint has created an imaginary town, and tells stories of various residents in such a way that characters wander through each other's stories, just like happens in real life. This will no doubt make it even more interesting when I start re-reading books.
Audio Readings:
April 11, 2015
Feb 15, 2018
April 4, 2019
I like how de Lint has created an imaginary town, and tells stories of various residents in such a way that characters wander through each other's stories, just like happens in real life. This will no doubt make it even more interesting when I start re-reading books.
Audio Readings:
April 11, 2015
Feb 15, 2018
April 4, 2019
April 14, 2024
The Onion Girl by Charles de Lint is the first book I've ever read by this author. Though I'd never heard of Jilly Coppercorn before, coming into her story blind at book 8 in the Newford series didn't mean I felt lost learning about her world, either. In this respect, I felt like the author did a great job for someone like me.
But I think a heads up is warranted for those considering reading this book as it does get into sexual abuse, murder, homelessness, drugs and prostitution. However, on the flip side of these things, I thought de Lint had a wonderful imagination when he shifted over into what he called the "dreamlands." It wasn't hard to keep up with how everything worked over there or seeing how this magical faerie world connected to the "World As It Is."
The characters that were a part of the dreamlands were definitely interesting, especially Jilly's close friend, Joe Crazy Dog. I really liked him, his background and the things he could do in the dreamlands. But someone I initially didn't really care for in that other world was Jilly's gnome friend, Toby. Toby's sexual nature whenever he was around Jilly bothered me because of her past, and I was surprised Jilly wasn't more standoffish or curt with the gnome whenever he was like that with her - but maybe that's just me. Personally, I liked Toby better when he tamed down in this regard and was a better friend to Jilly.
While I was curious about Jilly's past, current life and the dreamlands she crossed over into, it was Raylene's life that sucked me in. Readers first meet Raylene in Tyson, Summer 1969 with her best friend, Pinky Miller. For me, this memorable introduction of these two characters felt like they stole the show from Jilly because of how hard their lives were, how they handled those difficulties and how no matter what sour thing happened in their lives, they were as solid as any two birth sisters could be. Their bond made me think about Jilly and how she'd lost out on that kind of love with her own siblings for various reasons. Still, Jilly did seem very close with the circle of friends she chose to be her surrogate family but these relationships didn't have the same punch for me as Raylene and Pinky's did.
Though some of the things Raylene and Pinky say and do were sometimes very violent and dark, strangely enough they still had this kind of genuine air about them when it came to their friendship because of their past and how far they'd go for one another at times. For me, it was interesting to see how they brought each other's monsters out through their friendship, the way they looked at things and the choices they made.
After seeing what Raylene and Pinky were capable of, I was definitely wondering how the confrontation between Raylene and Jilly would go down because of the kind of person Raylene turned out to be. I was really looking forward to this. However, I have to admit I was kind of disappointed instead when it finally happened. In retrospect, it could've been because Raylene's actions felt so out of character for her at that point. Maybe it was because of all the anticipation that'd been built up for me as a reader and what I gravitated to in this story as well as my own personality of how I also enjoy action in my stories. Or perhaps it was just because this was a long book, and I wanted a better climax for staying with it. Regardless of the reason for the confrontational let down I experienced, the ending of de Lint's work was something I wasn't dissatisfied with at all. Personally, I loved it.
Clearly, Raylene and Pinky's story resonated more with me than Jilly and her friends. I thought about this effect too and figured this could've happened because of how I hadn't read the previous seven books and this fact was catching up to me in not really knowing how Jilly's friends had come into her life, but I still definitely felt how she was at the center. But as I reflected, I also realized Raylene felt more like The Onion Girl to me than Jilly. While I can appreciate how hard it was and still is at times for Jilly to come back from her ugly past and what a bright light she was despite this, in this story, I felt like Raylene grew a lot more in the end than Jilly.
Still, overall I thought The Onion Girl was a really great story, and I'll be adding it to my book shelf.
But I think a heads up is warranted for those considering reading this book as it does get into sexual abuse, murder, homelessness, drugs and prostitution. However, on the flip side of these things, I thought de Lint had a wonderful imagination when he shifted over into what he called the "dreamlands." It wasn't hard to keep up with how everything worked over there or seeing how this magical faerie world connected to the "World As It Is."
The characters that were a part of the dreamlands were definitely interesting, especially Jilly's close friend, Joe Crazy Dog. I really liked him, his background and the things he could do in the dreamlands. But someone I initially didn't really care for in that other world was Jilly's gnome friend, Toby. Toby's sexual nature whenever he was around Jilly bothered me because of her past, and I was surprised Jilly wasn't more standoffish or curt with the gnome whenever he was like that with her - but maybe that's just me. Personally, I liked Toby better when he tamed down in this regard and was a better friend to Jilly.
While I was curious about Jilly's past, current life and the dreamlands she crossed over into, it was Raylene's life that sucked me in. Readers first meet Raylene in Tyson, Summer 1969 with her best friend, Pinky Miller. For me, this memorable introduction of these two characters felt like they stole the show from Jilly because of how hard their lives were, how they handled those difficulties and how no matter what sour thing happened in their lives, they were as solid as any two birth sisters could be. Their bond made me think about Jilly and how she'd lost out on that kind of love with her own siblings for various reasons. Still, Jilly did seem very close with the circle of friends she chose to be her surrogate family but these relationships didn't have the same punch for me as Raylene and Pinky's did.
Though some of the things Raylene and Pinky say and do were sometimes very violent and dark, strangely enough they still had this kind of genuine air about them when it came to their friendship because of their past and how far they'd go for one another at times. For me, it was interesting to see how they brought each other's monsters out through their friendship, the way they looked at things and the choices they made.
After seeing what Raylene and Pinky were capable of, I was definitely wondering how the confrontation between Raylene and Jilly would go down because of the kind of person Raylene turned out to be. I was really looking forward to this. However, I have to admit I was kind of disappointed instead when it finally happened. In retrospect, it could've been because Raylene's actions felt so out of character for her at that point. Maybe it was because of all the anticipation that'd been built up for me as a reader and what I gravitated to in this story as well as my own personality of how I also enjoy action in my stories. Or perhaps it was just because this was a long book, and I wanted a better climax for staying with it. Regardless of the reason for the confrontational let down I experienced, the ending of de Lint's work was something I wasn't dissatisfied with at all. Personally, I loved it.
Clearly, Raylene and Pinky's story resonated more with me than Jilly and her friends. I thought about this effect too and figured this could've happened because of how I hadn't read the previous seven books and this fact was catching up to me in not really knowing how Jilly's friends had come into her life, but I still definitely felt how she was at the center. But as I reflected, I also realized Raylene felt more like The Onion Girl to me than Jilly. While I can appreciate how hard it was and still is at times for Jilly to come back from her ugly past and what a bright light she was despite this, in this story, I felt like Raylene grew a lot more in the end than Jilly.
Still, overall I thought The Onion Girl was a really great story, and I'll be adding it to my book shelf.
November 20, 2018
Beautiful, sad and uplifting at the same time.
World: The world building is fantastic. I can tell that de Lint loves Gilly cause she gets a lot of easter eggs and call back from the rest of the Newford books, from Dreams Underfoot to here it has been a journey for Gilly and the world has changed along with it and all these different beautiful pieces come home to play. There are the new pieces of course which is done well and tied to Gilly and her past. I liked that this world was beautiful and broken but didn't wallow or enjoyed the parts that were violent, disgusting and sad, this is just there as part of the story and the work, not something to titillate. Enjoy this world, it feels like a culmination of all the books before and Gilly is at the center of it.
Story: Tragic, beautiful, broken and uplifting at the same time. I recently read the wonderful "Sadie" and I get the same sense here. This is a book about characters, broken, human, dirty, messy characters. This is not a glorification or a exploitation of the horrible things that make people broken, but an exploration of the characters afterwards. It's a look at the journey we take when things go bad and it is done with de Lint's beautiful magical world. Things are not just straightforward here, escaping into another world really happens here and hiding take on a different meaning. It's a beautiful deep dive in Gilly as a character and her story and all the things in her past and how they made her what she is. It's beautiful and I don't have much more to say. I love Charles de Lint so I have rose colored glasses for his books, but once again reading his stories I remember the people who slip through the cracks, the people who we forget or quickly judge for their brokenness and it is books like this that reminds us that life is beautiful everywhere even when it's broken and sometimes especially when it's broken.
Characters: Gilly is beautifully done, she's complex, she's human and we get a deep dive into her as character. So far in the Newford series she has been a constant and somewhat on a pedestal for she was so strong and positive and the sound and gentle voice for so many characters in the other books. This is her story and it's deep, just like the title of the book she is an onion with layers and reading about the different layers makes us think about what it is to be human and the things that make each of us the way we our, our own onion. I won't go into the other characters cause that would be spoiling the story, they are all so wonderfully done, so beautiful and broken in the most wonderful way.
I love this book, it's intimate and big at the same time. Pardon my nerdy comparison but this feels like a comic event book changing the entire world and landscape of Newford but also intimate and personal as it should be.
Onward to the next book!
World: The world building is fantastic. I can tell that de Lint loves Gilly cause she gets a lot of easter eggs and call back from the rest of the Newford books, from Dreams Underfoot to here it has been a journey for Gilly and the world has changed along with it and all these different beautiful pieces come home to play. There are the new pieces of course which is done well and tied to Gilly and her past. I liked that this world was beautiful and broken but didn't wallow or enjoyed the parts that were violent, disgusting and sad, this is just there as part of the story and the work, not something to titillate. Enjoy this world, it feels like a culmination of all the books before and Gilly is at the center of it.
Story: Tragic, beautiful, broken and uplifting at the same time. I recently read the wonderful "Sadie" and I get the same sense here. This is a book about characters, broken, human, dirty, messy characters. This is not a glorification or a exploitation of the horrible things that make people broken, but an exploration of the characters afterwards. It's a look at the journey we take when things go bad and it is done with de Lint's beautiful magical world. Things are not just straightforward here, escaping into another world really happens here and hiding take on a different meaning. It's a beautiful deep dive in Gilly as a character and her story and all the things in her past and how they made her what she is. It's beautiful and I don't have much more to say. I love Charles de Lint so I have rose colored glasses for his books, but once again reading his stories I remember the people who slip through the cracks, the people who we forget or quickly judge for their brokenness and it is books like this that reminds us that life is beautiful everywhere even when it's broken and sometimes especially when it's broken.
Characters: Gilly is beautifully done, she's complex, she's human and we get a deep dive into her as character. So far in the Newford series she has been a constant and somewhat on a pedestal for she was so strong and positive and the sound and gentle voice for so many characters in the other books. This is her story and it's deep, just like the title of the book she is an onion with layers and reading about the different layers makes us think about what it is to be human and the things that make each of us the way we our, our own onion. I won't go into the other characters cause that would be spoiling the story, they are all so wonderfully done, so beautiful and broken in the most wonderful way.
I love this book, it's intimate and big at the same time. Pardon my nerdy comparison but this feels like a comic event book changing the entire world and landscape of Newford but also intimate and personal as it should be.
Onward to the next book!
October 29, 2023
“I suppose the other thing too many forget is that we were all stories once, each and every one of us. And we remain stories.”
This sentence written near the end of The Onion Girl by Charles de Lint brings home an important point in human development. We are all stories. Stories are one of the main things that shapes human existence and everyone has a story no matter who you are.
In The Onion Girl, one of the cherished characters from De Lint’s Newford Series, Jilly Coppercorn, takes center stage. Jilly is an artist with a cheerful personality and the ability to connect with everyone. However, we find out her story as a child and the things that shaped her into the woman she has become.
Jilly left her family because of a relative’s inappropriate behavior, causing ongoing problems. De Lint’s story explores the impact of a life-changing decision on siblings from different perspectives.
The Onion Girl has the usual cast of characters if you are a regular reader of the series. De Lint tells a complete story in the novel, just like the rest of the books in the series. If you’ve read the books in order, you’ll notice the connections between the characters and the importance of Newford as the setting.
It seems that many people with an artistic bent—musicians, writers, as well as artists—have had a less than wonderful childhood. Any thoughts on that?
I can’t speak for anybody else, but maybe it’s because so many of us are outsiders. You know, we just don’t conform well.
Jilly was interviewed by an art magazine reporter early in the novel, and those last two paragraphs came from the interview. She spoke the truth about those with an artistic bent being outsiders to normal society, and their non-conformity always comes to the forefront. The Onion Girl highlights the profound connection that stories can create, surpassing what we typically experience in everyday life.
I’m reading this Newford Series in publication order and The Onion Girl is the eighth published book in the series. It is my favorite novel since Trader and de Lint brings a favorite character to life that makes her multidimensional and fully human simultaneously. I will admit that is not the book to start for a newcomer. However, this novel is perfect for readers who want a complete fantasy story that skillfully blends magic, mythology, and city life.
This sentence written near the end of The Onion Girl by Charles de Lint brings home an important point in human development. We are all stories. Stories are one of the main things that shapes human existence and everyone has a story no matter who you are.
In The Onion Girl, one of the cherished characters from De Lint’s Newford Series, Jilly Coppercorn, takes center stage. Jilly is an artist with a cheerful personality and the ability to connect with everyone. However, we find out her story as a child and the things that shaped her into the woman she has become.
Jilly left her family because of a relative’s inappropriate behavior, causing ongoing problems. De Lint’s story explores the impact of a life-changing decision on siblings from different perspectives.
The Onion Girl has the usual cast of characters if you are a regular reader of the series. De Lint tells a complete story in the novel, just like the rest of the books in the series. If you’ve read the books in order, you’ll notice the connections between the characters and the importance of Newford as the setting.
It seems that many people with an artistic bent—musicians, writers, as well as artists—have had a less than wonderful childhood. Any thoughts on that?
I can’t speak for anybody else, but maybe it’s because so many of us are outsiders. You know, we just don’t conform well.
Jilly was interviewed by an art magazine reporter early in the novel, and those last two paragraphs came from the interview. She spoke the truth about those with an artistic bent being outsiders to normal society, and their non-conformity always comes to the forefront. The Onion Girl highlights the profound connection that stories can create, surpassing what we typically experience in everyday life.
I’m reading this Newford Series in publication order and The Onion Girl is the eighth published book in the series. It is my favorite novel since Trader and de Lint brings a favorite character to life that makes her multidimensional and fully human simultaneously. I will admit that is not the book to start for a newcomer. However, this novel is perfect for readers who want a complete fantasy story that skillfully blends magic, mythology, and city life.
January 20, 2013
I really liked this fantasy book and would recommend it, as well as Charles de Lint’s books in general, to anyone who likes modern-day fantasy, especially if they like books that are character driven and maybe a little slower-paced than other stuff on the market.
Despite that, though, this particular book comes with a few strings attached. Not to start with a negative, but I’ll just be up front about it and explain what the strings are.
For starters, it would be good to just point out that this book is not YA. I know not everything we review on the blog is YA, but a lot of it is, and de Lint is an author who writes for both teens and adults, so I thought I would make that clear.
Now, this isn't me saying, "Don't read it if you're a teen." This is just me saying what market the publisher wanted to put this in. It does probably have slower pacing and older narrators than YA generally has. It also has graphic and implied depctions of violence and sexual abuse that our characters struggle to overcome, which may deter some readers, depending on their age, experience and comfort level.
The overall tone of the book is optimistic though, without trivializing the difficulty of the characters’ situations. De Lint has a lot of respect for his characters.
Now, there’s still one more string, though totally unrelated to the first. Again, this isn’t something that should necessarily deter you from reading the book, but it might be a turn-off.
I have a feeling that people who are familiar with Charles de Lint will already know what I am going to say.
The Onion Girl is what fans call one of the Newford books; that means it is a work of fiction that takes place in de Lint’s fictional city of Newford, a place that houses many other stories which take place in a variety of his other books. Each book that I have read so far seems like a strong enough book to stand on its own. The Onion Girl is indeed a stand-alone story, but elements and characters from past books will sometimes slip in and out of future books, and that is very much the case here.
I suppose I should have been warned by this part of the book description to go back and read some of the previous books first: “At the center of all the entwined lives of Newford stands a young artist named Jilly Coppercorn, with her tangled hair, her paint-splattered jeans, a smile perpetually on her lips—Jilly, whose paintings capture the hidden beings that dwell in the city’s shadows. Now, at last, de Lint tells Jilly’s own story…”
Yeah, okay that should have been a warning bell to go back and read up on some previous stories before I read this book if I wanted to feel really solidly ingrained in the story. But I had previously read The Blue Girl and Little Grrl Lost, which were also Newford books. Both of those novels (which are YA) seemed pretty self-contained, so I didn’t think I would have a much of a problem with this one, either.
And I didn’t. At least, not a big problem. But this book felt slightly more disorienting than either of the previous titles I mentioned. Evidently, Jilly is friends with nearly everyone in town. As a result, de Lint introduced lots of characters in this book with names and very short descriptions of their character, like summaries almost. The book expects readers to more or less keep track of them all. The author was good at dropping in reminders about how they fit in with the plot, but as a reader previously unfamiliar with their stories, I still found them a little distracting.
It makes sense and fits right in with Jilly’s character for her to know all of these people and for them to visit her in the hospital after her car wreck (this is not a spoiler; it happens right away), though. Maybe these small character moments couldn’t have been avoided. But to be honest, even though de Lint took great care to not make it sound like name-dropping, I still felt slightly alienated as a new reader.
For example, Jilly once or twice mentions the fact that her friend, Isabelle, has the ability to paint beings and have them come to life and cause her trouble. It’s a small, offhand, almost irrelevant comment that Jilly states and then lets go away, but it made my reading process come to a screeching halt, distracted. Whoa! That sounds like a big enough story to be it’s own story!
Well… that’s because it is.
(Apologies for the Amazon link. Someday I promise I will get a Goodreads account and then I will be able to link to books on a website that doesn’t also try to sell you stuff.)
Anyway. After I got used to these things, I sort of just wrote them off as quirks of de Lint's world. This fantastical universe is like that: sometimes the characters (and you as a reader) get to experience whole alternate worlds and magnificent magical experiences, and sometimes they (and you) just get to see snippets here and there, mere hints that there is more to the world than just plain-old reality. So ultimately, even though these odd character moments were jarring, they worked in the novel’s favor for me.
This novel had all of the strengths I have come to associate with Charles de Lint: A well-developed magical world that hasn’t lost its sense of the mysterious or the whimsical. Strong, well-developed characters. A higher value in emotional truth than rationality
In this book in particular, I appreciated the nuanced good-versus-evil themes, with the recognition that not everyone gets the privelege to "fight" the evil in their lives, and instead must learn to grow and heal from it in other ways.
I’ll also say that I liked it enough to go back and start in on the rest of the Newford books.
I can’t believe I only discovered this author a few years ago, and I am surprised I don’t hear about him more. He is clearly very prolific and has been writing for a long time. Urban fantasy/magical realism (this work seems to have elements of both) is a favorite of mine. It’s all over the place in fiction nowadays, but de Lint’s work is still better than some newer stuff I have read, and seems pretty timeless regardless.
If you have read this or other of Charles de Lint’s books, I’d love to hear your perspective on them. If not, and if you like urban fantasy, I expect you will probably like this book—unless you have a problem with one of the “strings” attached that I mentioned before. In that case, maybe try checking out his other books first. Start from the beginning, like I didn’t do. Or try one that isn’t so entwined in other stories. I think I would consider The Blue Girl a good introduction; that’s more or less a standalone and I recommend it.
Despite that, though, this particular book comes with a few strings attached. Not to start with a negative, but I’ll just be up front about it and explain what the strings are.
For starters, it would be good to just point out that this book is not YA. I know not everything we review on the blog is YA, but a lot of it is, and de Lint is an author who writes for both teens and adults, so I thought I would make that clear.
Now, this isn't me saying, "Don't read it if you're a teen." This is just me saying what market the publisher wanted to put this in. It does probably have slower pacing and older narrators than YA generally has. It also has graphic and implied depctions of violence and sexual abuse that our characters struggle to overcome, which may deter some readers, depending on their age, experience and comfort level.
The overall tone of the book is optimistic though, without trivializing the difficulty of the characters’ situations. De Lint has a lot of respect for his characters.
Now, there’s still one more string, though totally unrelated to the first. Again, this isn’t something that should necessarily deter you from reading the book, but it might be a turn-off.
I have a feeling that people who are familiar with Charles de Lint will already know what I am going to say.
The Onion Girl is what fans call one of the Newford books; that means it is a work of fiction that takes place in de Lint’s fictional city of Newford, a place that houses many other stories which take place in a variety of his other books. Each book that I have read so far seems like a strong enough book to stand on its own. The Onion Girl is indeed a stand-alone story, but elements and characters from past books will sometimes slip in and out of future books, and that is very much the case here.
I suppose I should have been warned by this part of the book description to go back and read some of the previous books first: “At the center of all the entwined lives of Newford stands a young artist named Jilly Coppercorn, with her tangled hair, her paint-splattered jeans, a smile perpetually on her lips—Jilly, whose paintings capture the hidden beings that dwell in the city’s shadows. Now, at last, de Lint tells Jilly’s own story…”
Yeah, okay that should have been a warning bell to go back and read up on some previous stories before I read this book if I wanted to feel really solidly ingrained in the story. But I had previously read The Blue Girl and Little Grrl Lost, which were also Newford books. Both of those novels (which are YA) seemed pretty self-contained, so I didn’t think I would have a much of a problem with this one, either.
And I didn’t. At least, not a big problem. But this book felt slightly more disorienting than either of the previous titles I mentioned. Evidently, Jilly is friends with nearly everyone in town. As a result, de Lint introduced lots of characters in this book with names and very short descriptions of their character, like summaries almost. The book expects readers to more or less keep track of them all. The author was good at dropping in reminders about how they fit in with the plot, but as a reader previously unfamiliar with their stories, I still found them a little distracting.
It makes sense and fits right in with Jilly’s character for her to know all of these people and for them to visit her in the hospital after her car wreck (this is not a spoiler; it happens right away), though. Maybe these small character moments couldn’t have been avoided. But to be honest, even though de Lint took great care to not make it sound like name-dropping, I still felt slightly alienated as a new reader.
For example, Jilly once or twice mentions the fact that her friend, Isabelle, has the ability to paint beings and have them come to life and cause her trouble. It’s a small, offhand, almost irrelevant comment that Jilly states and then lets go away, but it made my reading process come to a screeching halt, distracted. Whoa! That sounds like a big enough story to be it’s own story!
Well… that’s because it is.
(Apologies for the Amazon link. Someday I promise I will get a Goodreads account and then I will be able to link to books on a website that doesn’t also try to sell you stuff.)
Anyway. After I got used to these things, I sort of just wrote them off as quirks of de Lint's world. This fantastical universe is like that: sometimes the characters (and you as a reader) get to experience whole alternate worlds and magnificent magical experiences, and sometimes they (and you) just get to see snippets here and there, mere hints that there is more to the world than just plain-old reality. So ultimately, even though these odd character moments were jarring, they worked in the novel’s favor for me.
This novel had all of the strengths I have come to associate with Charles de Lint: A well-developed magical world that hasn’t lost its sense of the mysterious or the whimsical. Strong, well-developed characters. A higher value in emotional truth than rationality
In this book in particular, I appreciated the nuanced good-versus-evil themes, with the recognition that not everyone gets the privelege to "fight" the evil in their lives, and instead must learn to grow and heal from it in other ways.
I’ll also say that I liked it enough to go back and start in on the rest of the Newford books.
I can’t believe I only discovered this author a few years ago, and I am surprised I don’t hear about him more. He is clearly very prolific and has been writing for a long time. Urban fantasy/magical realism (this work seems to have elements of both) is a favorite of mine. It’s all over the place in fiction nowadays, but de Lint’s work is still better than some newer stuff I have read, and seems pretty timeless regardless.
If you have read this or other of Charles de Lint’s books, I’d love to hear your perspective on them. If not, and if you like urban fantasy, I expect you will probably like this book—unless you have a problem with one of the “strings” attached that I mentioned before. In that case, maybe try checking out his other books first. Start from the beginning, like I didn’t do. Or try one that isn’t so entwined in other stories. I think I would consider The Blue Girl a good introduction; that’s more or less a standalone and I recommend it.
April 10, 2020
mul on de Lintiga selline veider suhe, et tema "Kusagil lennata" meeldis mulle üle mõistuse hästi ja seega loen teda enda jaoks oluliseks autoriks; aga iga kord talt midagi lugedes pettun rohkem või vähem, sest ükski teine tema raamat ikkagi ei ole "Kusagil lennata". Newfordi lood on seega alati paremad kui muud lood; ja varesetüdrukuteta ei ole ka miski kunagi see.
"The Onion Girl" on küll üsna korralik Newfordi lugu, hästi paljude teistest raamatutest tuttavate kõrvaltegelastega, aga kahjuks ilma selle "Kusagil lennata"-kohavaibita (enamus tegevust toimub kas haiglas või üldse kuskil teises ilmas, mitte linnas endas). varesetüdrukud lipsavad läbi täpselt sellisel määral, et kahtlustan, et teisedki peale minu tahavad neid näha ja de Lint täidab siin tellimust. linnuke (no pun intended) saab kirja, aga see püss küll oma pauku ära ei teinud.
kõik deLintilikud (indiaani) mütoloogia elemendid on muidugi korralikult olemas. isegi ükssarvikuid leidub, muudest pisematest haldjatest rääkimata, väljamõeldud raamatutegelastest maaema(de) endini välja.
tagakaaneteksti väitel on Jilly Coppercorn üks Newfordi keskseid tegelasi, aga mul teda teistest lugudest küll eriti palju meeles pole. siiski, täiesti korralik raamat ka ilma igasuguse muu taustata, ühe inimese elust ja saatusest ja valikutest ja kõigest sellest. mulle meeldis, kuidas see lugu end lahti keris ja kuidas asjade seosed ja põhjused tasapisi ilmnesid. aga segas, et minu meelest ei selgunudki isegi päris lõpus, et kes siis ikkagi esimesel leheküljel mõrvakatse sooritas :(
"The Onion Girl" on küll üsna korralik Newfordi lugu, hästi paljude teistest raamatutest tuttavate kõrvaltegelastega, aga kahjuks ilma selle "Kusagil lennata"-kohavaibita (enamus tegevust toimub kas haiglas või üldse kuskil teises ilmas, mitte linnas endas). varesetüdrukud lipsavad läbi täpselt sellisel määral, et kahtlustan, et teisedki peale minu tahavad neid näha ja de Lint täidab siin tellimust. linnuke (no pun intended) saab kirja, aga see püss küll oma pauku ära ei teinud.
kõik deLintilikud (indiaani) mütoloogia elemendid on muidugi korralikult olemas. isegi ükssarvikuid leidub, muudest pisematest haldjatest rääkimata, väljamõeldud raamatutegelastest maaema(de) endini välja.
tagakaaneteksti väitel on Jilly Coppercorn üks Newfordi keskseid tegelasi, aga mul teda teistest lugudest küll eriti palju meeles pole. siiski, täiesti korralik raamat ka ilma igasuguse muu taustata, ühe inimese elust ja saatusest ja valikutest ja kõigest sellest. mulle meeldis, kuidas see lugu end lahti keris ja kuidas asjade seosed ja põhjused tasapisi ilmnesid. aga segas, et minu meelest ei selgunudki isegi päris lõpus, et kes siis ikkagi esimesel leheküljel mõrvakatse sooritas :(
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