Book Review – The Brightest Fell  by Seanan McGuire

Series: October Daye

BooK: 11

Review by d c mallory

What happens when your mother, who is lost and confused, wants you to do something you really don’t want to do and, just to make it interesting, takes away the thing you want most to get it done? In October Daye’s case, you make one mistake after another.

The October Daye series has always been one of my favorites – possibly my favorite series of all times, with the majority of the books getting four and five stars – which is an extremely high rating for me. I wish I could say this book was another masterpiece of the same five star caliber. Unfortunately, this book just seemed to lack any of the enthusiasm and excitement for me that I have gotten used to from the rest of the books in the series; even the first book – which was my least favorite – had some redeeming qualities in it. This book though, The Brightest Fell,  felt rushed and clueless from start to finish. It had none of the warmth and feeling that I got from all the other books. And, while Toby usually gives us the feeling of actually caring about others and truly wanting to help them, here she just felt tired and cold.

The other books in the series always held my interest from start to finish, except for the first book which never seemed to sit right with me. This particular book, however, did nothing for me. After a promising start which gave me great expectations for what was to follow, it just seemed to plod along like a tired old mare, pulling references from the other books in what seemed to be an effort to fill words on the page while never coming up with anything new. Then, in the middle of the book, just when I thought  there was a chance she could pull out all of the stops and actually introduce something new – the book was over. At least I assume it was over; there was a period at the end of the sentence with nothing following it. Guess it wasn’t the middle of the book after all. Maybe I was confused when I bought the book and this version was actually a novella that I paid full price for,  with the real book is coming along at later date. Kind of like Laurell K. Hamilton pulled off with her Micah book. All the money but none of the content.

And, speaking of assumed endings, what kind of ending was that anyway? It was worse than Stephen King pulled when he had to wrap up the Dark Tower series and came up with that lame endless loop scenario where you just say “Fuck It” and punt; he could have done much better than that. Hello, Seanan! I know you could have done one hell of a lot better than you did, too! Wait a minute! You didn’t do anything! Just slammed the damned door closed on us and left nothing to finish out the book. An ending without and ending, you might say. What a ripoff!

Sure, come the end of the “cough novella cough” book because of all that had happened to her due to her circumstances, Toby was pissed at her mother, and her sister, and Simon, the neighbor next door, and her readers. Oh, never mind about the neighbor next door – I just made that up. Just like I made up my own ending in place of Seanan’s cop-out. And I guess Toby wasn’t mad at her readers, either. But Seanan sure must have been.

So, after reading what little was there, I gave this book three stars. And three stars might be two stars too many for this mess. A great start. A slow and muddled middle. And Seanan, for what I paid for the book, you owe me an ending because one sure as hell didn’t happen in this catastrophe!

I am so disappointed.

dcm