Review – The Boy Who Lost Fairyland (The Girl Who, Book 4) by Catherynne M. Valente (5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Middle
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 240 pages
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Release Date: March 3, 2015
ISBN-13: 978-1250023490
Stand Alone or Series: 4th book in the The Girl Who series
Source: Gift
Rating: 5/5 stars

This is the fourth book in the The Girl Who/Fairyland series by Valente. It was beautifully written in absolutely magical prose. I love Valente’s writing style. This is a book to be read slowly and savoured. This series is supposed to wrap-up with the fifth book in the series, The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home, which is set to release in March of 2016.

This book takes a detour from September’s story and instead we follow a young troll named Hawthrone who is changed with a human baby and grows up as a very different type of young boy in a human family. Eventually he meets a girl named Tamerlaine and they find out that they are not human at all but from Fairy. They end up journeying to Fairyland and in the end their story just might have some rather large implications for September as well.

Although this book is a detour from the main story featuring September it does end up tying into her story in an interesting way. I enjoyed it, although with all of this series, this is a book to be read slowly and savoured. There is a lot of wonderful, sparkling description that I absolutely love, but it’s not something you can read quickly.

Valente has a very distinct writing style; it’s a bit ambiguous, very prose-like, incredibly creative, and full of amazing imagery. I absolutely adore her writing style, but it is something I only read occasionally because it does require some effort to read.

I absolutely loved reading about a troll who thinks he is a boy; while he’s a fairly normal troll he is very unusual for a boy and being raised as a boy is tough on him. I loved the character of Hawthrone and how he struggles to be “normal” and his relief when he finds out he isn’t normal. I think a lot of people who are a bit different will be able to relate to the everyday human struggle to seem “normal”.

There is a lot of humor in this book too; Hawthorne’s list of strange human rules is especially witty and hilarious. A lot of the things that happen throughout the story are very tongue in cheek.

Overall I adored this latest installment in this wonderfully creative fantasy series. The writing is absolutely stunning with beautiful prose and incredibly creative imagery. I was nervous about detouring from September’s story at first, but I shouldn’t have been. Hawthorne’s story is just as engaging and interesting as September’s has been. If you love wildly creative fantasy and beautiful prose-like writing I definitely recommend this whole series to you.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge