Customer Reviews

The Onion Girl

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

After I finished "The Onion Girl" last night, I sat there feeling vaguely dissatisfied and tried to figure out why. I think it all comes down to what some other reviewers have pointed out: we've seen this before - numerous times and handled better than this.

DeLint's earlier books had a sense of wonder and delicacy both in his writing and in his portrayals of characters and Dreamlands/Otherlands. As you read, it felt as if the magical place he was talking about was not only real but that it could be fragile as well; it *was* real but only as long as you believed and DeLint was very good at making us believe. With this book, however, I didn't feel drawn in - more like bludgeoned. It reads along the lines of "You will believe in Newford and in the Dreamlands because I say so."

Characters in this book are not there so much to show as to tell which tends to rob the book of much of its possible emotion. We're told how wonderful Jilly is, we're told how much her friends are frightened for her or pulling for her to get better, but we're never shown it. We're surrounded by all these people who have supposedly pulled themselves up by their bootstraps or dealt with hard things in life but everyone reads the same regardless of their prior experiences. Wendy, positioned as a character with a normal (read: non-abusive) childhood, comes across no differently than Jilly or Sophie. We're told she has a hard time relating to the childhood Jilly experienced but it comes across like a line in a script read by an extremely poor actress. There is nothing to back up what we're being told to feel. Everyone is the same flat character with different names.

Raylene's "transformation" rings hollow. Her motivation in this story has essentially been payback. She's face to face with the person, has the means and the method, and she suddenly decides not to? And in such a way that intimates some noble self-sacrifice when, all through the book, we're given example after example about how she's out for what she can get for herself? There is nothing that points to this completely unbelievable change of heart except perhaps DeLint wanted a happy (or happier) ending after "Forests of the Heart".

The Newford books seem to be becoming more about DeLint's personal likes/dislikes/agenda than him setting the characters down and letting them tell the story. We're treated to page after page of a character or characters wandering around in Native American or Celtic myths/stories/dreamlands and these scenes read as a too-long "Let me show all the things I know about this culture" rather than as vital to the story. In addition, although normally I like seeing the little snippets regarding music and musicians in his book, there is one paragraph regarding a band that comes in completely from left field and seems designed simply to advertise friends of DeLint's and nothing more.

Overall, I felt the book fell flat on its face with its themes. What could have been an exploration of the meaning of family, how/if the events of the past color the future, child abuse, et cetera, were drowned out by DeLint and his Anvil Chorus. Between the coy phrasing of abuse victims as "Children of the Secret" and Jilly's apparent canonization, there is nothing real about this book or Jilly's and Raylene's experiences to hang onto. Instead, we're treated to a really long hurt/comfort fanfic.

At one point, a character says something to the effect of "children are our most precious resource". While true, it reads as the author needing to make sure we get that point and providing it via anvilicious methods. We. Get. It. Charles.

Will I read another DeLint book? Possibly - I'll at least give him one more chance. However, I definitely won't be buying it in hardback. I'll content myself with my copies of "Jack of Kinrowan" and "Trader" until his next book comes out in paperback. If his next book is the same as "The Onion Girl", I''ll sadly clear his books off my shelf and go in search of a new author who can make me feel the way DeLint used to.

In the Onion Girl, De Lint fans will find his usual superb writing and his interesting take on mythologies and urban fantasies; however, as a De Lint fan, be prepared to have the veil removed regarding the always cheerful, favorite character, Jilly.

New readers for De Lint are better off starting with books like Moonheart or The Little Country--they are a little more lighthearted and more descriptive of both De Lint's urban Newford and his spirit world. The Onion Girl is darker and relies more on past Newford characters and their experiences 'crossing over' into fantasy as well as their experiences with the spirits in our world.

As a longtime De Lint fan, this book is as enjoyable as always.

I am a fan of Charles de Lint and can't imagine actively disliking anything he writes, but I have to admit that this is not my favorite de Lint novel. Jilly Coppercorn has long been one of my favorite de Lint characters, but in The Onion Girl, de Lint tells me more than I wanted to know about Jilly. The magical veil is somehow ripped away, and I am face-to-face with a character I maybe don't like as much as I thought I did.

And, speaking of characters, there is an almost dizzying array of them and there were times when I had trouble keeping score. I didn't feel as though I got to know any of them in this novel -- there simply wasn't enough space for anyone in this pantheon to fully develop. I think that the lack of character development contributed to a sense of disbelief and some real confusion about the actions of some of the characters, especially Wendy and Raylene.

In spite of all of this, I did enjoy the book and I remain an avid fan of Charles de Lint, all of his people - fairie and otherwise -- and all of his worlds!

Here is another fantastic novel by the master of the urban fantasy. This one is about Jilly Coppercorn, a painter who seems to peek her head in on most of de Lint's stories, whether they are short stories or novels. De Lint sets a majority of his tales in the North American city of Newford, and whether Jilly has a small or large part in the story, she is at Newford's heart; all the characters seem to have been affected by Jilly's kindness, charm and buoyant good nature. Jilly is the Onion Girl, however, and we see a much darker part of her than ever imagined before. This book is about the past, and how it can come snapping back to us, teeth blazing, when we least expect. This is one of those Chihuahua-smooshing burglar-stunning kinds of books, but it reads as fast as a 250 page-sized version. As usual, there is magic, and creatures far older than you or I, who were old when the world was created. But the thing I admire the most about de Lint's fiction, and this book is no different, are his characters. They are the ones who help out at soup kitchens and take in stray cats and bring people in off the street. These are people who have seen hard times themselves and go out of their way to help others. It is the simple fact that these people are good, in the purest sense of the word. And at the end of the novel, I truly wished Jilly was a real person that I could phone up and tell exactly how much I admire and love.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book. To be completely fair, it is the first book I've read by this author and I realise there's other books that come before it in this series. From what I've read of other reviews, it's not necessarily the best book of his for a total newbie to start off with.

I did like the world Charles de Lint created. The gritty fantasy aspects of it reminded me a bit of some of Neil Gaiman's work. I thought the character of Raylene was very well developed. I personally didn't have trouble sympathising with her, even though she wasn't a very "nice" person. The other characters were not as well-developed though, and Jilly in particular seemed very different from the vivacious personality everybody claimed her to be. She was actually rather depressed and self-pitying, which I suppose is understandable considering what she goes through in the book. Still, to have a character everyone says is one way, who behaves in a manner completely contrary to that is rather disconcerting. Also, the guy she eventually falls in love with at the end of the book is little more than a cardboard cut-out, which is too bad, considering how big a deal De Lint makes of her being unable to connect to men.

I don't want to totally bash this book though. It was certainly interesting enough to keep me going and I did enjoy the world that De Lint created. I think a lot of the problems I ran into come from kind of jumping into the middle of a series with a book that seems to depend on a lot of prior knowledge of the characters. I'd be willing to give some of his earlier books a try though.

For long-term fans of Charles de Lint's popular Newford novels, the central character of Jilly Coppercorn is engaging but enigmatic. So now she gets her own novel. It's a good story, well-written, compelling, and easy to read while giving you plenty to think about after you close the covers. So why is there some dissatisfaction nagging at me?

Don't get me wrong. It's a great book, about a great character in great situations. I recommend it to fans and neophytes. But there's a little bit of a something...

Jilly is struck down in a hit-and-run accident, leaving the vivacious painter bedridded and half-crippled. And that's on the first page. The story unfolds both forward and backward, letting us in on backstory we've never been privy to before, both on the character and the universe. Some characters are held in reserve: characters spotlighted in this book are given short shrift in the next novel, "Spirits in the Wires," and vice versa. But this story focuses on the characters who color every de Lint book without often getting their own showcase.

The theme running through this book is how awful incest and childhood sexual abuse are. I know this and agree wholeheartedly, but the book goes over the theme time and again, like a wound the author can't stop handling. In this book, a single abusive character is the motivation behind nearly everything that happens both to Jilly and her personal antagonist over the course of decades. Human beings are deeper and more complex than this. A writer of de Lint's skill owes his characters more than he's willing to give them.

And I'm also bothered by one fact. If the dates de Lint gives are accurate, the principals in the book must all be pushing fifty, yet many are still looking for that one true love in their lives. Shouldn't there come a point when the characters graduate from that sort of rootlessness to a more mature identity? The characters act like they are in their early thirties, when this emotional meandering would be exactly appropriate, yet the dates add as much as two decades to their ages. It's time for the characters to settle down with one person and move on to the next identity crisis, which a writer of de Lint's ability should be able to execute adroitly.

That said, the character conflicts are engaging, the plot moves foreward at a good pace that varies from cautious to lickety-split very effectively, and the payoff does feel earned. This book is good both as an introduction to Newford and an extension for established fans. So much is so deeply linked that any synopsis would give away key facts, so let's put it this way: the characters who are central to Newford go through meaningful personal changes in this book that will effect future novels.

Highly recommended, despite the two problems mentioned above, this book expands on the ambiance that is Newford without destroying the magic and mystery. It isn't even necessary to have read the other Newford books to get what's going on. Subtle and enjoyable, this is a fantasy book for a grand audience and fantasy fans alike to savor and reread.

In _The Onion Girl_, Newford artist Jilly Coppercorn suffers a devastating personal tragedy that forces her to re-evaluate her life and face things in her past that she'd rather not. As she is virtually the glue that holds Newford together, she is aided by a mind-boggling cast of characters, both this-worldly and otherworldly.

I loved this book and couldn't put it down, but I ended up having mixed feelings about it when I was done. On the one hand, DeLint's writing was a beautiful as ever, his depictions of the joys and terrors of the Otherworld as richly realised, his characters as real and his forthright pictures of some very ugly human experiences as affecting.

On the other hand, there are certain things I found a bit off. The cast of characters is SO enormous -- at times it seems that everyone who's ever appeared in a Newford story shows up at some time or another -- that it's a little hard to keep track of; I certainly wouldn't recommend reading this book unless you've at least read one or two of DeLint's short story anthologies. Towards the end, the message got just a little overbearing. At the same time, I didn't like the implication that only magic could really heal Jilly; I would have liked to see her take some real world steps to deal with her baggage. Maybe deciding to get therapy isn't magical, but I really think she could use it.

I did like that everything between Jilly and her "nemesis" wasn't completely resolved and that there was still some tension between them at the end. I also liked the fact that this ending wasn't a happy-ever-after kind of thing--that people underwent irreversable changes.

I didn't like that one character who could have been really interesting seemed to exist merely to deliver a heavy-handed message about standing up to bullies, which I think the book delivered effectively elsewhere. It seemed a waste of a character and brought up certain questions that were not answered to my satisfaction.

Probably if you're a DeLint fan already you'll like this book. If you haven't read anything by this fine writer, don't start here or you'll be lost.

CDL fans will particularly like this, it's like a convention of his Newford characters. This book concentrates mostly on Jilly, one of the main characters of De Lint's Newford stories, and her attempts to reconcile with her traumatic childhood and seedy past in the wake of an accident that leaves her in a hospital bed. De Lint does a particularly good job at merging the magical and the mundane in this book. The story shifts back and forth between the "real world" and the realm of dreams and magic as Jilly attempts to escape her broken body by going to another world in her dreams, only to discover that her past follows her there, too.

A first time reader can enjoy the story on its own merits, but fans will get even more out of it by having read the background stories on the other Newfordites that appear. I enjoyed the opportunity, also, of getting to know one of my favorite characters better.

Ok, I'm a big fan, I admit it. Starting with Moonheart, many years ago, DeLint's books never lose their fascination for me. The stark reality of the life on the streets blends with spirit world in that compelling and fascinating way of his.

Jilly Coppercorn has always been one of my favorite characters. She reminds me of a few of the wounded souls I know - lost children, indeed... it always amazes me that Charles DeLint, a man, can portray these women with such reality. It is not a spoiler to tell you that this book is about Jilly; we get to know her better than ever before, and to admire her strength.

I am not sure if I have read everything he has written, but I have certainly come close. This is one I will certainly read over again. Many of the people we have come to know over the years have at least a cameo. The tension and uncertainty of what will happen will keep you glued to the book, although I made myself come up for air a few times...just to make it last longer.

I stumbled upon Charles DeLint's "The Onion Girl" while doing some research on fantasy books for a college project. Being new to the genre, and reluctant to read fantasy, I had no idea what to read. The book's title and the cover art by John Jude Palencar enticed me, and once I started the book, I could not put it down.

The story's main character, Jilly Coppercorn, is struggling to heal from an accident. The circumstances that lead to her accident are shrouded in mystery, leaving her to find the clues and piece them together, a difficult task when one's bones are broken. Lying in her hospital bed, she learns to "cross over" into another world she has only heard of. Jilly experiences a catharsis as a result of her other wordly adventures, and she makes a surprising choice that heals her body and soul.

DeLint's prose is inspiring, as his descriptions make the natural supernatural, and the extraordinary accessible to us mere mortals. His blend of urban streets, the wilderness, and dreamscape create a seamless trip through dimensions. The characters are quite likeable, and are varied in personality, from policeman to artist to shapeshifter.

"The Onion Girl" quieted any preconceptions I had about fantasy writing, and I would recommend this book highly to those who are curious about the genre, but don't know where to start.