A friend recommended the book
Chime by Franny Billingsley, so I
read it on my solo flight across the country for Rachel's wedding.
Honestly, if she hadn't said it was worth reading, I might have given up
after the first few dozen pages. The narrator, Briony, is intense and
the world the author creates is strange and bleak, but my friend was
completely right. It was so worth pressing on. Briony grew on me and I
adored her sister, Rose, with her "I prefer" and her paper cuttings.
And Eldric? Well, let's just say I would have had a serious crush on
him as a teenager. :) (Note: there are a few curse words in it :( )
So I found two of her other books at the library:
Well Wished and
The Folk Keeper. The latter is more like
Chime,
with a strong, almost abrasive main character who is struggling to
figure out who she really is. The former is for a slightly younger
audience. Nuria is only 12 and she is adorable. She lives with her grandfather in a little village with a magic well.
In all three, Billingsley uses the
same mix of fantasy in a realistic setting which I loved. All three were worth reading.
