My Week in Book Review: The Girl Who Soared over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two

The Girl Who Soared over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two by Catherynne M. Valente

September misses Fairyland and her friends Ell, the Wyverary, and the boy Saturday. She longs to leave the routines of home and embark on a new adventure. Little does she know that this time, she will be spirited away to the moon, reunited with her friends, and find herself faced with saving Fairyland from a moon-Yeti with great and mysterious powers.

Let me just start off by saying that this book is part of a series, and if you haven’t read the prior two books (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

and The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There), I’m going to gush about the series for a couple of paragraphs, and then I’m going to start in on the spoilers.

Before I get there, let me say that if you haven’t read these books, you need to. Like, yesterday. I LOVE these books, along with the two that follow it (The Boy Who Lost Fairyland and The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home). When people ask me what the stories are about, I tell them they’re a less creepy version of Alice in Wonderland­. Were you creeped out by that story too (not to mention the new movie, which I haven’t seen but don’t need to to be creeped out)? Everything is weird and upside down and goes badly for Alice, minus the waking up part. The Fairyland books are similar in that a girl goes to a fantastical place and meets all kinds of strange and wonderful creatures, but unlike Alice, she has an important role to play there. Also, while the places, creatures, and rules are random in Fairyland, the story arc is not. (If some Alice in Wonderland megafan is mad at me now, I’m sorry. It was one of those books I just never connected with.)

So, why do I love the Fairyland books so much? There are a million and one stories about kids going off to special worlds, so what’s special about these ones? (And, side note, why the incredibly long names?) I can’t answer for the names except that they do weirdly fit, but as for the stories—they’re beautifully written, they have great foreshadowing that comes in clutch books down the road (not unlike the Harry Potter books), and they’re full of insights about life that just stop me in my tracks and make me think, “Wow, how did I never think about it that way before?” You could have so many book clubs about these books.

Okay, okay. So getting to the book I recently reread—number three— The Girl Who Soared over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two (whew—and now let me take a breath after saying that whole title). This story is where September, our protagonist, is the momentous age of fourteen. Ah, that terrible time that hits all kids eventually—the Pevensies in The Chronicles of Narnia, Wendy in Peter Pan—when you grow up, you lose your ability to go to magical places. It’s a thing. September worries about it even as she wants to hurry along with her life—primarily, to get to the part where she can go back to Fairyland as she has for the last two summers. The whole book deals with time—a yeti’s paw that can speed up time, fairies who used said paw to always get what they wanted when they wanted it, September’s Marid friend, Saturday, and how Marids see themselves outside of time (if you haven’t read the books, Marids can see themselves and other Marids at any point in their lives—they might see their young self or a future self, their child or ancestor, at any point). The book draws to a close with a great chapter describing how “time is the only magic.” The example? If your body heals itself over the natural course of time, it’s not magic, but if it heals itself instantly, it is. Um, yes. That’s true. Mind suddenly blown.

Choices are another big deal in this book. Right off the bat, the time when September normally gets taken to Fairyland by a Wind has come and gone, so when she sees her chance, she makes the choice to leap into Fairyland through a “gap” in the line between worlds rather than waiting being picked up. She later smashes the heart (a little red book) of her fate (a miniature leopard) to prove that she controlled it and not the other way around. This keeps coming up, but to me, her fear of not having choices is most strongly embodied in her relationship with Saturday.

In book 1, September sees her and Saturday’s future daughter (as a half-Marid, this daughter can pop up whenever). September has worried about that ever since, feeling like it takes away her choice to be with Saturday since she’s already seen that they’ll get together and have a child. Yes, she loves him, but heck! She was only twelve when she first saw their daughter, and what tween/teen wants to feel like their future life/marriage/child has been decided for them and they have no say? So while Saturday has strong feelings for Saturday—she’s missed him so much that even when she sees him again, it’s hard to turn the missing off—she wants to feel like she’s choosing him because she wants to and not because she’s predestined to do so. By the end of the book, she starts to realize that she’s worrying too much about fate and that she needs to just choose what she wants right now and let fate sort itself out.

Unfortunately, as the book is about to end, what September says she wants is granted, trapping her in Fairyland. In a horror story-eque twist not characteristic of these books, we then flash to September’s home in Nebraska to see her mom panicking over and her dog sniffing at September’s empty bed. End scene.