Ash, Malinda Lo

Ash
Author: Malinda Lo
Little, Brown, & Co., 2009
ISBN: 9780316040099
YA: fairy-tale retelling of Cinderella, with the Godmother replaced by a besotted fae male, and the Prince replaced by a Huntress.

I'm glad to see Bisexual characters that aren't caricatures, and it's nice to see a westernish medieval fairy-tale country that isn't homophobic or strictly hetero.

I have to say I have an irrational dislike of the name Aisling, so using Aisling to get Ash as a nickname, while utterly reasonable, bothered the crap out of me.  Personal problem.  I also didn't like that the "sleeping on hearths" was thrown in the way it was - either leave it in or take it out.  I don't like half-assing.

The Huntress was a great concept, and I liked the idea of a kingdom where magic is slowly fading away, and so the relationship with the other world of the fae, and the people of that other world, is also slowly fading away.  The fae themselves were great.  I am a fan of inscrutable and vaguely menacing otherworldly fae.  I'm just not into sparkles and kisses, or benevolent pixies and fae-king's sons.  That said, I would have enjoyed knowing just a leeeetle more about the whole fae kidnapping thing.  The hinted reasons (why, and why not as often anymore) didn't really satisfy me.

I'm a bit sad that the greenwitch character from the beginning just falls off the radar.  I'm also a bit perplexed by Ash's ability to non-magically (?) dance a pavanne when she admits she can't dance.  I've tried - it's hard.  When you don't do it right, you look like an idiot, because you're out of time with EVERYONE else.   

The penultimate "paying her favor" scene was also a bit off for me.  Either go all the way and admit what's going on (and reward your readers with a payoff scene), or don't and just don't go there at all with hints and teases.  I really didn't like how that played out, especially since we have no way of knowing what's in S's mind at the time.  It was all too easy and quick to really be an emotional climax scene.