Rebel
| Title: | Rebel |
| Author: | R J Anderson |
| Genre: | TeenKid, Fantasy |
| Series: | Faery Rebels (2) |
| Copyright: | 2010 |
| Ranking: | Good |
| LibraryThing: | Title:Rebel ISBN:978-1-40830-737-3 (Add Book) |
| Type: | Owned |
| Read: | 2010-10-03 |
Linden's cage glowed with fiery heat, burning her fingers when she tried to cling to the bars. She fluttered helplessly in midair, wing muscles aching with the effort, knowing that she couldn't hover much longer before her strength gave out - and that the moment it did, she would die...
Plot
The pace of this was faster than Knife. Homicidal faeries with magic do make things more exciting. There were plot developments I could see coming, and others which took me by surprise (which is a good thing).
Characters
As with Knife, the lead characters (Timothy and Linden, but particularly Timothy) have things to learn and growing to do.
I found Timothy particularly easy to identify with, but others may find the opposite, as he is the son of missionaries, and they might feel that mind-set too completely alien to even fathom where Timothy is coming from. Those people may find the book preachy simply because it mentions Christianity at all, but the fact that Timothy is struggling with doubts is an essential part of his character arc, as it is what sets the action of the story in motion.
As with Thorn in Knife, one of the supporting characters, Rob, snuck up on me and made me like them a lot. Rob, like Thorn, is one of those sarcastic, jaded folk who manage to hope despite themselves, and I really like those kind of characters. And I'm happy to say that Thorn managed to get in a cameo near the start; I would have missed her if she hadn't.
Style
I didn't particularly notice the style, which means that it was neither lyrical nor clumsy.
Ideas
Again there is world-building; we find out more about the nature of faeries. Questions are answered, assumptions are challenged, and more questions are raised. One of the fascinating things about the knowledge in this story is that no one group has the whole picture; every group has a mix of truths and mistaken assumptions that the other groups don't have, and finding the full truth is a challenge. History can be twisted in so many different ways, depending on how it is told.
The other cool thing is the title. The original title (and the title in the US edition) was "Wayfarer", and I liked that better, but that was before I read the story. Now I like "Rebel" much better. The theme of rebellion weaves its way through the story, but I didn't realize how rich it was until I'd finished. There are rebels and rebels; and who is the real rebel, when all is said and done? Read it and find out.