Review: The Good Fairies of New York

The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar
4.25 stars


Reasons for reading: I like fairies, it sounded fun, recommended by Nymeth for the Herding Cats Challenge II

Summary: "When a pair of fugitive Scottish thistle fairies end up transplanted to Manhattan by mistake, both the Big Apple and the Little People have a lot of adjusting to do. Heather and Morag just want to start the first radical fairy punk rock band, but first they’ll have make a match between two highly unlikely sweethearts, start a street brawl between rival gangs of Italian, Chinese, and African fairies, help the ghost of a dead rocker track down his lost guitar, reclaim a rare triple-bloomed Welsh poppy from a bag lady with delusions of grandeur, disrupt a local community performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and somehow manage to stay sober enough to save all of New York from an invasion of evil Cornish fairies.If they can stop feuding with each other, that is."

First line: "Dinnie, an overweight enemy of humanity, was the worst violinist in New York, but was practicing gamely when two cute little fairies stumbled through his fourth-floor window and vomited on the carpet."

My thoughts: This book was hilarious, bizarre, and quite touching. From the moment they make their vomitous entrance, punk-rock loving fugitive fairies Morag and Heather are irritating yet irresistable. I really liked that there were fairies from all over the world living in New York (although, oddly, no Irish or Scottish ones). There are so many threads to this story - including but not limited to: the bag lady who thinks she's an ancient warrior, the travels of the Welsh poppy around New York, the fairy rebellion back in Britain, the fact that Morag and Heather break every sacred fairy treasure they come in contact with, a musician's ghost searching for a lost guitar - and they're all woven together incredibly well. Kerry, a lovely young artist who suffers from Crohn's disease and Dinnie, the aforementioned enemy of humanity, are each befriended by a Scottish fairy and their lives will never be the same.

The verdict: A weird but wonderful story.