Book Review: How to Ditch Your Fairy

How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier
Click on the cover to see which libraries own it.

SUMMARY: This light fantasy takes place in a world that is much like our own, except that nearly everyone has some kind of fairy that gives them one special ability. Charlie attends a magnet high school for sports and has normal life of schoolwork and sporting events. However, her parking-space fairy is so annoying that she has decided to starve it by walking everywhere, which takes up a huge amount of time and earns her a lot of demerits, game suspensions, and community service time. Teaming up with her best friend (shopping fairy), the boy she likes (not-getting-in-trouble fairy), and her archenemy (all-the-boys-like-you fairy), Charlie embarks on an increasingly wild quest (luge, anyone?) to get rid of her fairy once and for all.

OPINION: Although this is technically a fairy fantasy, it reads more like a contemporary novel with weird slang. There is none of the darkness that makes fairy books like Tithe so popular, and there is no cultural fairy connection as in The New Policeman. The fairies in this book each randomly provide a particular gifting to a person; consult the List of Known Fairies in the back for an amusing recap of those mentioned in the book. I really enjoyed Charlie's strong-willed antics, and it was great to read about well-rounded girl who could play a wicked game of cricket, do well in school, and enjoy a day of shopping. I do wish that the author had provided a little more information about the world of New Avalon and the history of the fairies, but overall it was a humorous and easy read. It was little on the girly side, but I'd still recommend it for girls and guys in middle and early high school. The comedic tone of the story reminded me a lot of books by Janette Rallison, so check it out if you are a fan of hers.

The Cover of Liar

At our Book Grub meeting on Friday, I put out a table of new books for everyone to browse. We started talking about Liar by Justine Larbalestier, and I mentioned some issues surrounding the original cover image. On the Advance Reading Copy, there was a white girl on the cover who looked nothing like the black main character of the book (even though the cover was very appealing otherwise). Early readers mounted such a fuss over it that the publisher created a whole new, more appropriate cover for it before the real publication date.

Anyway, I just wanted to link you to Justine's original blog post in case you wanted to read more about the cover of Liar that was itself a lie. It's also an interesting look into the publishing world. And to read a bit more about the new cover, read this post.

PS--You may be interested to know that Justine Larbalestier is married to Scott Westerfeld, who we love because of books like Uglies and Peeps! Read her personal FAQ page for more info on that.