(no subject)

Wow, I'm glad my pants weren't on fire when the fire alarm went off on Wed.

(I read this fifteen minutes ago, and I'm still giggling. I think my coworkers think I'm insane. Of course, they probably think I'm insane on a normal day too.)

I finally have a computer again, and now I get to jump through all the hoops and reinstall everything. This is very irritating. And I think the video card really sucks, because all the vids I try to watch get very pixellated when there are fades or fast movements.

This really, really irritates me.

I just want to watch my vids, damnit!

*much gnashing and grinding of teeth*

Black, Holly - Valiant

Val has run away to the streets of New York. There, she befriends Lolli, Dave and Luis, all kids who live on the street and shoot Never, a faerie drug. Never is actually a faerie potion made by Ravus (who is a troll) to combat iron sickness for faeries who have been banished to the city by both courts. Soon, faeries who have been taking the potion begin dying off, leaving Val and her friends in a tangled mess of faerie politics and addiction.

I liked this better than Tithe, mainly because the combination of the streets of New York and the outcasts of faerie worked a little more for me. Tithe has the same gritty feeling of this book, but it didn't seem to tie together quite as well as this one does, mainly because the focus of Tithe is on the faerie courts. I like that the faeries in this book are also outcasts, just as Val and her friends are, that all are living on the outskirts of society.

However, I think I liked the street scenes much more than Val's scenes with Ravus, despite Ravus' centrality to the story. The training scenes and the slight attraction just feel a bit out of place with the rest of the story, even though they end up playing a big role. I'm not quite sure how to articulate why; it's just the tone shifts ever so little, but it's enough to throw me out of the story a bit.

I was much more fond of Val than I was of Kaye, probably because Val feels more proactive to me for some reason. Also, Val, unlike Kaye, isn't overshadowed by the Designated Love Interest.

The book's an interesting and fast read, and a cool take on faerie that isn't twee or grandly beautiful. And it was also fun to see cameos from some of the characters of Tithe, and props to Black for not succumbing to sequelitis and letting the previous characters of another book take over (*glares at certain romance authors*).