Valiant
Official Stuff-
Author – Holly Black
Pages – 313
Publisher – Simon Pulse
Series – Modern Faerie Tales
Summary –
When seventeen-year-old Valerie runs away to New York City, she’s trying to escape a life that has utterly betrayed her. Sporting a new identity, she takes up with a gang of squatters who live in the city’s labyrinthine subway system.
But there’s something eerily beguiling about Val’s new friends.
And when one talks Val into tracking down the lair of a mysterious creature with whom they are all involved, Val finds herself torn between her newfound affection for an honorable monster and her fear of what her new friends are becoming.
My Rating – 2 Stars
Val is a runaway. Betrayed by her mom, her boyfriend, and her best friend; she decides to take off into NYC. There she meets Lolli and Dave; two homeless teenagers squatting in an abandoned subway station. She also meets Dave’s brother Luis, who doesn’t trust Val at all.
Getting used to her new life, Val follows Dave around on his errands, where she encounters some very strange individuals, including a woman with what appear to be hooves for feet. Dave tells her not to ask questions but Lolli tells Val about faeries and trolls and other fairytale creatures. They decide to explore and happen to accidentally steal from a troll. A troll that happens to be Luis’s boss.
After striking a deal to save Lolli’s life, Val becomes his servant.
Being his servant gets her tangled up in the murder of fae creatures and she must decide which one of her new friends that she can trust.
My overall impression of this book was “meh”. I just finished it the other day and I forgot most of it already. I don’t feel like this book is good for young readers. There is a lot of foul language, sex and intravenous drug use (they use a fae drug called Never but how it’s used is very similar to heroin).
Val is so/so. I’m slightly annoyed that she decides to run away from home and become homeless because she gets her heart broken. It seems….over dramatic. But she is a fighter and that I can appreciate.
I really have nothing else to say about this book because nothing really grabbed me or stayed with me.