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Nightingale's Nest (2014)

by Nikki Loftin(Favorite Author)

3.88 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

159514546X (ISBN13: 9781595145468)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Razorbill

review 1: In a story loosely inspired by the Hans Christian Anderson tale "The Nightingale," the part of the Emperor is played by a rich small town dollar store entrepreneur and the part of the nightingale by a small foster girl with a magical singing voice. It really is magical, as it turns out, but our narrator, Little John, just thinks she's crazy or grieving and refuses to believe until, of course, the very very end. This approach to fantasy just doesn't work for me. I have no problem with outright fantasy or magic realism but if something is going to end up being accepted as magical, I need it to feel like more of an actual possibility for the narrator sometime before it is actually, sort of, accepted. Instead all of the gritty real-world problems were piled on one after anothe... morer, beatings, drinking, death, poverty, accidents, mental illness so it was really hard to accept the fairy tale ending. There were some other logical inconsistencies with Little John's behavior as well regarding his actions with the "blood money." I can accept that he might have made the same (bad) choice but for him to not even have considered the consequences of taking what was to be the rent money beforehand seemed both uncharacteristic and unreasonable when he was already acutely aware his family's money problems.
review 2: I know good books don't have to be happy, but this one put me in a bad mood. I like the characters of Gayle and Little John, however the adults in this novel creeped me out. I think I'll find and re-read "The Nightingale" which is the fairy tale that this story was based on. Maybe that will make me appreciate it with a new perspective! The magical elements of the story were enticing and Gayle's devoted friendship to Little John was very touching. less

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