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Dust Girl: The American Fairy Trilogy Book 1 [Hardcover]

Sarah Zettel
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)

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Book Description

June 26, 2012 The American Fairy Trilogy (Book 1)
Fans of Libba Bray’s The Diviners will love The American Fairy Trilogy’s stylish blend of fantasy and twentieth-century history.
      Callie LeRoux is choking on dust. It settles on the food in the kitchen. It seeps through the cracks in the hotel that Callie and her mother run in Kansas. It’s slowly filling her lungs. Callie’s begged her mother to leave their town, like their neighbors have already done, but her mother refuses. She’s waiting for Callie’s long-gone father to return.
    Just as the biggest dust storm in history sweeps through the Midwest, Callie discovers her mother’s long-kept secret. Callie’s not just mixed race—she’s half fairy, too. Now, Callie's fairy kin have found where she's been hidden, and they're coming for her.
       While red dust engulf the prairie, magic unfolds around Callie. Buildings flicker from lush to shabby, and people aren’t what they seem. She catches glimpses of a tail, a wing, dark eyes full of stars. The only person Callie can trust may be Jack, the charming ex-bootlegger she helped break out of jail.
        From the despair of the Dust Bowl to the hot jazz of Kansas City, from dance marathons to train yards, to the dangerous beauties of the fairy realm, Sarah Zettel creates a world rooted equally in American history and in magic, where two fairy clans war over a girl marked by prophecy.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

Kirkus Reviews Best of Teen's Books 2012

About the Author

SARAH ZETTEL is an award-winning science fiction and fantasy author. She has written eighteen novels and multiple short stories over the past seventeen years in addition to practicing tai chi, learning to fiddle, marrying a rocket scientist and raising a rapidly growing son. This is her first novel for teens. You can visit her at SarahZettel.com.

Product Details

  • Age Range: 12 and up
  • Hardcover: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers (June 26, 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0375869387
  • ISBN-13: 978-0375869389
  • Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.1 x 8.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #489,557 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars American historical fantasy set in the 1930's June 28, 2012
Format:Hardcover
I got an eGalley of this book to review through NetGalley(dot)com. I was really excited to read this book, I love fairy tales and was curious to read about a fairy tale in a 1930's American setting. The book ended up being very underwhelming; the story was simple, not all that engaging, and just overall mediocre.

Callie lives with her mother in Kansas and spends most of the time fighting against the continuous drought and frequent dust-storms that have made her sick. When her mother disappears in a sandstorm Callie is left to fend for herself and discovers that she is not exactly human. She will have to journey to California with a hobo boy named Jack if she is ever going to save her mother.

I will be blunt...I didn't like this book much...I didn't hate it, but I wasn't all that engaged in it either. I thought everything about it was a bit washed out (like the cover). The landscape and setting were kind of blah, Callie and Jack were kind of boring, and the journey they take was similar. That being said is wasn't poorly written, I just didn't find it to be an exciting read.

Callie kind of goes with the flow for most of the book; she accepts the fact that she's half fairy pretty readily. She has occasional moments of strength, but for the most part she was like every other YA heroine you've ever read about. She fancies Jack and is determined to find her mom. She makes many of the same mistakes (trusting strangers who say they know her) over and over again.

Jack was okay too, but nothing special. He is kind of your bad boy thief type and goes along with the adventure to get a good story. He also makes a lot of mistakes and never comes off as a real strong or noble hero.

The setting was an interesting one for a fairy tale, it is a creative idea. It didn't really work for me though. The 1930's dust bowl as a backdrop of a fairy tale? Sounds kind of neat. But the scenes were never really described in a way that made them come alive for me; everything just seemed washed out.

I also enjoyed how Callie used music to call magic. Unfortunately the magic system wasn't well defined and the rules to how Callie could use her magic were inconsistent. I like my magic with some consistency (I know probably sounds a bit silly).

My favorite part of the book was when they went to the Fairyland amusement park. I loved the irony in this part of the story and how different parts of fairy tales were blended in with something like an amusement park. If the whole story had been more like the end, this could have been a great read.

Overall it was an okay read. It is a quick read and is decently written. Everything about the story was mediocre; although the 1930's is an interesting setting. I personally wouldn't recommend reading this book if you like fairy tales; there wasn't as much fairy tale to this story as there was adventuring through the 1930's. So if you are interested in American Historical Fantasy this might interest you, unfortunately there isn't a lot to the story...it's pretty simple. I won't be reading any more of this series.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars all the fairies, none of the escapism June 26, 2012
Format:Hardcover
DUST GIRL impressively combines historical and fantasy elements. It's set in Kansas during the Dust Bowl, five years into the drought that's killed crops and forced established families to abandon their homes and seek better fortune elsewhere. Slow Run, where our heroine Callie was born and raised, has slowly turned from an agricultural center into a ghost town.

That's not all, of course. Callie's mother is a little crazy. Callie herself is dying of dust pneumonia, her lungs filling up with dirt that's slowly suffocating her. And she's a mixed-race child, with a white mother and a black father, during Segregation.

If you read the book blurb, you know this is a fairy story. That Callie's absent father is a fairy prince, making Callie a fairy princess. You might think that the fantasy elements would offer an escape from the grim, dry reality of the Kansas Dust Bowl. This is a middle-grade paranormal, after all - surely there will be iridescent wings and silk gowns and marble fountains somewhere along the line? But, no, Sarah Zettel defies expectations.

There's magic aplenty in DUST GIRL, but all of it is themed. Zettel takes up fairy lore that we all know (the Seelie/Unseelie court, the deadly potency of iron, etc.) and wraps it up with issues like race relations and poverty. For example: the "Unseelie" fairies are dark-skinned, making Callie appear to be mixed race, and one of the court's primary sources of magic is jazz music. DUST GIRL is, bizarrely, a fairy story that refuses to indulge even the smallest escapist tendency. All of the fantastical elements lead the reader deeper into the history.

My biggest problem with the book was Callie. I had no idea how old she was. The book is narrated from her point of view and sometimes her vocabulary would be very sophisticated but at others very simple. Sometimes her understanding of the world felt childlike, at other times more adult. She could have been anywhere from eight to fifteen, and I was never sure. I couldn't get a really solid bead on her personality, either. Sometimes she was meek and obedient. Sometimes she had gumption. I was never sure what sparked one side of her character to come out over the other and she ended up just plain not making any sense to me.

I think a lot of people are going to love this book. The worldbuilding is a feat in itself. I do recommend it to anyone who's thrilled at the prospect of a non-escapist book about a fairy princess. Personally, however...because the heroine never grabbed my heart, the book itself didn't either. I was impressed, but I didn't fall in love.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars brimming with magic and mystery March 17, 2013
Format:Hardcover
Once upon a time Callie thought she was a normal girl.

Sure, she had dust in her lungs and lived with her mama in a rundown hotel in the rundown town of Slow Run, Kansas but that wasn't as strange as you might think in the middle of America's Dust Bowl. Certainly Callie had her secrets, same as her mama, but those were normal, human girl secrets. Because, once upon a time, Callie really thought she was a normal, human girl.

That ended on April 14, 1935 when her mama disappeared and Callie found out she wasn't human at all.

Left alone for the first time in her life, with strange creatures tracking her, Callie will have to leave behind everything she knew to find the unbelievable truth of who she is in Dust Girl (2012) by Sarah Zettel.

Dust Girl is the first book in Zettel's American Fairy trilogy. The second book, Golden Girl, is due out in summer 2013. This is Zettel's first book for a young adult audience.

Zettel's writing is filled with evocative descriptions of deadly dust storms and sprawling landscapes that bring 1935 Kansas to life. References to the music and nuances of the era create an atmospheric read. Written in the first person, Callie's voice is reminiscent of tall tales and wide spaces. Dust Girl is brimming with magic and mystery but throughout the story it is the heroine, Callie, who really makes this novel stand out.

Dust Girl is a subtle, contemplative read where Callie's journey throughout the novel is just as satisfying as the dramatic conclusion. While there is clearly more to Callie's story, Dust Girl ends nicely with enough closure to make the wait for book two bearable.

Possible Pairings: Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson, The Diviners by Libba Bray, The Dark Unwinding by Sharon Cameron, Graceling by Kristin Cashore, Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones, The Iron King by Julie Kagawa, A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin, Extraordinary by Nancy Werlin, Paper Valentine by Brenna Yovanoff
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Magical adventure set during the dust bowl era
An ambitious and mostly successful combination of magical adventure and historical novel, this story of a half fairy girl set during the dust bowl years really brings that era to... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Jaylia3
5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous
I loved this book. Callie is an adorable character, and the whole thing is peopled with all manner of twisted and fascinating Fairy characters, but my favorite part is the prose. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Christian Klaver
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read.
I LOVE THIS WOMAN's imagination.I loved going to Fairyland as a child in Kansas City. My mother rode the roller coaster 17 times in a row until she and her beau ran out of money!
Published 5 months ago by Jane McCarthy
4.0 out of 5 stars Dust Girl - A Wonderfully Imaginative Take on Faerie Lore
Just when you think you've seen every take on faerie books, one comes out of the woodwork that gives you a whole new perspective on the topic. Read more
Published 7 months ago by MarlaSTNC
3.0 out of 5 stars Historical Fiction+ Fairies = Interesting
I'm going to go ahead and admit that I am not a fan of fairy books. I like them about as much as I like vampires and zombies. Read more
Published 8 months ago by The Flashlight Reader
3.0 out of 5 stars Dust Girl
On April 14, 1935, the worst dust storm ever recorded blows across Kansas. That is the day that Calliope LeRoux's mother disappears. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Jo Ann Butler
5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous!
I was hooked from the opening chapter. Callie LeRoux's voice as she gives us our first look at Slow Run, Kansas during the dust bowl is captivatingly gorgeous. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Kimberly
5.0 out of 5 stars Lovely Historical Fae Book
I'm not sure what it is with fae lore that makes me love it so, so much. I don't feel the same when reading about vampires or angels or zombies. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Celine
3.0 out of 5 stars A little underwhelming
Throughout the entire book I got the feeling that the author was trying to convey a message but I had no idea what the message was. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Charlotte Black
3.0 out of 5 stars A great recipe of magic, historical fiction, and fantasy. Not your...
Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales

Quick & Dirty: A great recipe of magic, historical fiction, and fantasy. Not your typical Fae story. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Dark Faerie Tales
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