words in scarlet ink

War for the Oaks by Emma Bull was the May book for my Women of Fantasy book club. I finished it in record time. 

From Amazon:

Eddi McCandry has just left her boyfriend and their band when she finds herself running through the Minneapolis night, pursued by a sinister man and a huge, terrifying dog. The two creatures are one and the same: a phouka, a faerie being who has chosen Eddi to be a mortal pawn in the age-old war between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. Eddi isn’t interested–but she doesn’t have a choice. Now she struggles to build a new life and new band when she might not even survive till the first rehearsal.

I loved this book. Loved it. Loved it.

…mild spoilers ahead!

The only thing I thought was a little bit odd was the way Bull constantly described what everyone was wearing/what they looked like. Beyond this, everything was great.

I liked the writing style even though I didn’t understand why we kept being told what everyone was wearing. It flowed well, and the story was very engaging. I did have to look up quite a bit about British, Celtic, and Scottish folklore – well, I didn’t have to look up too much stuff but I ended up reading a lot about it anyway – and that’s what I liked most about the book. It explained enough for the reader to understand but didn’t treat the reader like an idiot by going into too much explanation.

Considering how I didn’t like the main character for April’s book (Eden in Four and Twenty Blackbirds), I was a little wary when the main character’s name was Eddi. No real reason, except they were similar names, but I was still a little wary.

But I ended up liking Eddi much better than Eden. Eddi reacted the way I felt she should have reacted when chased down by a phouka. She was wary of him and didn’t want to be in the situation she was in – which I thought was NORMAL. I hate it when a completely normal human character gets kidnapped by some supernatural entity and just go along with it without question. Her doubt (and reactions) gave the book realism that sometimes I feel are lacking in urban fantasy books. I thought it was a nice touch that Eddi wasn’t comfortable with Meg slaving away for her, because I wouldn’t be comfortable with it either. I liked the Eddi explained to Meg that she could help save Willy just because it was the right thing and Eddi was asking her to do it. I really, really, really liked Eddi.

I liked that Eddi played guitar – rock and roll – and could sing, but while she did this and made her living off being in a bar band, she wasn’t SUPER!famous and they weren’t constantly talking about how she should be SUPER!famous. I also liked how while there was a lot about music in the book, there wasn’t so much that it got in the way of the story.

I thought the resolution was a little bit weak – the Queen of Air and Darkness’s magic vs. Eddi’s band’s magic, the way mortals sometimes have magic and music amplifies it.

Carla was the best girlfriend I always wished I had. Dan was kind of irrelevant, except to the band, but was there to give Carla more depth. I didn’t quite understand why Hedge was the way he was, and I kind of wish Bull had gotten into Hedge a little deeper because he was really interesting. Willy was…skeevy in a way, but got less so as you realized he was trying to understand what humans were like.

Then, there was the phouka. I really loved him. He was so…I don’t know…great is the best word. The way he talked was totally adorable and not normal, which was good, because he wasn’t normal. He was charming and pleasantly deceptive and overall just super adorable. I loved the way he described his love of Eddi to her. I will say the way the romance aspect of the story progressed a bit predictably; the moment Willy showed up and the phouka looked at him warily I knew that Eddi was going to start with Willy and end up with the phouka. I liked the phouka though, so it wasn’t one of those unbearable march-towards-the-inevitable-hideous-end things. I was rooting for him.

A major positive was that there were people/faeries/characters of color in this book. Dan was black (though he didn’t play a MAJOR role, he was a good supporting character and uber!cute when he was with Carla). The phouka also had dark skin, and he was central to the story. I didn’t like how, in Four and Twenty Blackbirds, Eden was described as a light skinned dark person who could have passed for white or something like that (I can’t remember exactly what the description was and the book is not close by) and there was this very clear distinction of light skinned blacks being the “normal” characters and the dark skinned blacks being the weirdos. Maybe it wasn’t intentional but it came across that way. Here the characters who weren’t white played better roles. I don’t usually get into the racial stuff I sometimes see on the internet, but in these two particular books it seemed kind of obvious to me, so I’m touching on it here.

I felt there could have been a little bit more on the faerie motivations and their desire to have this particular area of land. There were, for all intents and purposes, the good faeries and the bad faeries, and they were fighting over an area of land without really explaining why, except that was “what they did.” I suppose I might have missed the reason, but assuming I didn’t, it was a bit ill-defined.

Last thing – IT WAS SO 80s! I loved it! Eddi wore vintage stuff and they played punk rock and it was just so 80s! There were phone booths and no computers and people could make a living being a bar band! ❤

I highly recommend War for the Oaks. It’s engaging and fun – not too long or too dense. I can’t say enough good things about it. There’s so much to love.