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juushikaTitle: In the Palace of Repose
Author: Holly Phillips
Published: Prime Books, 2005
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 203
Total Page Count: 72,473
Text Number: 212
Read For: interest in the author after reading The Burning Girl, checked out from the library
Short review: Nine stories of the magic that hovers at the edges of the known word, In the Palace of Repose ranges from a girl found in a fairy's palace to a homeless woman invited to magical masked balls, united by quiet storytelling and unique magic. Many of the stories are unremarkable, but the best—"One of the Hungry Ones" was my favorite—are beautiful, striking a balance between magic and meaning and redeeming the collection. Moderately recommended.
I fell in love with Phillips's The Burning Girl, and came to In the Palace of Repose in search of more of her work. What I found did not quite live up to my expectations, but nonetheless offers some beautiful moments. The stories are united by their quiet, concise narrative voice which creates slow, reflective pacing in some stories and distances the reader from the characters in others. It takes a a bit to adjust to this style, so it's just as well the first few stories have attention-grabbing premises but are largely unremarkable: they're enough to make the reader stick around, but not so nuanced that he'll miss anything while he adjusts.
The reader slows and the story quality improves, and the second half of the collection (with a turning point midway through "Pen & Ink") is much better. Detailed descriptions and dreamlike sequences augment the slow pacing, and the magical aspects are subtle and haunting. Some of the stories still falter under the weight of foreshortened plots, but there are moments in the second half which are simply beautiful: unexpected hauntings, fetês like fairy-rounds, unusual magic and realistic emotions all come together to create stories which balance magic against meaning and wrap both in subtle, quiet storytelling. The slow start and a few duds in the lineup make this collection a bit of a disappointment, but the few good stories redeem it—though none of them are must-reads. In the Palace of Repose is good on the whole, but deserves only a mild recommendation: pick it up if you're curious, but don't go out of your way to read it.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
Author: Holly Phillips
Published: Prime Books, 2005
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 203
Total Page Count: 72,473
Text Number: 212
Read For: interest in the author after reading The Burning Girl, checked out from the library
Short review: Nine stories of the magic that hovers at the edges of the known word, In the Palace of Repose ranges from a girl found in a fairy's palace to a homeless woman invited to magical masked balls, united by quiet storytelling and unique magic. Many of the stories are unremarkable, but the best—"One of the Hungry Ones" was my favorite—are beautiful, striking a balance between magic and meaning and redeeming the collection. Moderately recommended.
I fell in love with Phillips's The Burning Girl, and came to In the Palace of Repose in search of more of her work. What I found did not quite live up to my expectations, but nonetheless offers some beautiful moments. The stories are united by their quiet, concise narrative voice which creates slow, reflective pacing in some stories and distances the reader from the characters in others. It takes a a bit to adjust to this style, so it's just as well the first few stories have attention-grabbing premises but are largely unremarkable: they're enough to make the reader stick around, but not so nuanced that he'll miss anything while he adjusts.
The reader slows and the story quality improves, and the second half of the collection (with a turning point midway through "Pen & Ink") is much better. Detailed descriptions and dreamlike sequences augment the slow pacing, and the magical aspects are subtle and haunting. Some of the stories still falter under the weight of foreshortened plots, but there are moments in the second half which are simply beautiful: unexpected hauntings, fetês like fairy-rounds, unusual magic and realistic emotions all come together to create stories which balance magic against meaning and wrap both in subtle, quiet storytelling. The slow start and a few duds in the lineup make this collection a bit of a disappointment, but the few good stories redeem it—though none of them are must-reads. In the Palace of Repose is good on the whole, but deserves only a mild recommendation: pick it up if you're curious, but don't go out of your way to read it.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
