Rebecca F. Kenney

Aislinn has lived in darkness as long as she can remember. She is Korrigan-- a girl at night, a caged monster during the day-- and only by Life-Stealing can she keep her human shape from dawn to dusk. When she finally steps into the sunlight, the first person she sees is Zane. He's everything she wants-- handsome, sweet, and normal. But an encounter with the Far Darrig, the malevolent trickster of Old Irish myth, changes Aislinn's future. He opens a new realm of possibilities that are anything but normal-- and with them, brings dreams and desires as dangerous as he is.Above all, Aislinn craves choice-- the right to decide her own path. But what if gaining power for herself means giving up something much more precious?

Korrigan

Shay

Actual rating 3.5, rounded up to 4.

First off, Rebecca Kenney is a great writer! I came across her work by happenstance and I'm so happy I did. It's so hard to find writers who include Irish Mythology in their work so to see so much of her work be based on Celtic myths and tales, and to include Gaeilge???? Iconic. Instantly all the points. 

I rushed to the internet to buy this series after reading her holiday themed book, Matches & Mistletoe: An Anthology of Four Celtic & Germanic Tales. I loved loved loved that she wrote about the Far Darrig in one of her short stories and I had to have more. Learning that this was a whole effing series with the Far Darrig?? Yes. Immediately yes. Take my money. 

And you know what? It was unique. It was different. It was very interesting. Rebecca took liberties with the classic tales and spun details in a way that would make sense for her world. The Korrigan, for example, are usually depicted as small faeries, sometimes even described as having magic or being really strong, and Rebecca wrote hers as monsters who inhabit the bodies of a cursed group of women. The liberties she took in adapting classic lore and mythology made sense in the context of her story and I really loved the way she wrote those elements into the book.

This is a Dual-POV story following Aislinn, a 17-year-old Korrigan trying to come to terms with who she is both as a Korrigan and as a person, and Zane, your typical 17-year-old high schooler. He's a bit of a sneakerhead but most of his personality is Aislinn. Which... is where I started to struggle. 

Zane is black. And I'm all for diversifying characters in books, but there was something about the characterization that felt off to me. Maybe a little forced? For example, the narrative voice for Zane was very 'proper' but in his language he would throw out slang every now and then and it felt very disjointed. It was like the slang was being used in dialogue because it's how Kenney imagines he would talk, but his narrative voice didn't follow suit so it had the effect of making Zane feel a bit stereotyped.

  

  Zane's Speech w/ Random Slang
  


  "Hey! Girl, you walk fast! Where you goin' in such a hurry?"


Zane's Narrative Voice

  I rub my aching eyes and close my notebook. I've been up since 5:30, squeezing in last-minute studying for a test. It's about 6:40 now, and the first light of sunrise beams through my window.


This story is told in first-person so I would think that Zane's chapters would be written from his POV and so would be written in his voice using the language he uses. But it wasn't. There was virtually no difference between Aislinn and Zane's chapters in terms of narrative voice and that made it feel very out-of-character when Zane spoke, which made the dialogue feel forced.

But also... Zane doesn't really feel like he should be the second main character. I said before that most of his personality is Aislinn and that's true. There's a small friend-group in the book and we meet Zane's family a few times, but never anything in-depth. I know very little about this character despite the fact that roughly half the book is told from his POV. 

Honestly, it feels more like the Far Darrig should have been the second POV, or maybe it should have all been from Aislinn's POV. I don't know where the second and third books go, so maybe that changes, but right now he still feels like a side-character moreso than the second main character. 

The first half of the book was kinda suspenseful, maybe even eerie. I think this author writes that kind of atmospheric mood very well. I appreciated all the Buffy references!! I spotted all that! And the Supernatural references. It was like a satisfying little surprise every time I came across one. 

I'm interested to see where the rest of this series goes for sure, especially with the way things are going between Aislinn and Kieran. (view spoiler)[I am curious if this is going to continue to be a love triangle and we got a Edward/Jacob situation going on here or if Aislinn is really going to stick by Zane. (hide spoiler)]

isabela. 

if you want to know why, check this thread:

https://twitter.com/lelouchs1mp/statu...

Korrigan

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