Rosemary and Rue

I enjoyed this book and the world. I enjoy stories of the far end look forward to delving into it further with the series.
I almost gave this a 3 star do to the number of questions I had that were just brushed by about the workings of the world. I gave it the benefit of the doubt (and the 4th star) because this is a long series and I hope these issues are addressed in later books.
Toby was an interesting character reaching maturity (well after she became and ‘adult') and I look forward to following more of her journey.

3 1/2 stars

http://fantasycafe.blogspot.com/2009/08/review-of-rosemary-and-rue.html

Good start, but it got boring really quick. The author got the first person narrative right, the protagonist loosing 14 years of her life was an interesting concept, but all we get out of this is a broken woman, one who doesn't want anything to do with her previous life. Then she is forced to investigate the murder of her friend/enemy and needs to ask for help of an abusive old boyfriend to discover the killers.

The relationship with the murder victim is barely developed, I couldn't care less for it. The abusive old boyfriend behaves like a charming prince, even though she describes him as a pimp. Her confrontations with side characters involve more emotion then reasoning, with the other part raising their voices and telling her to get out, instead of debating facts and ideas about the current situation.

October Daye seems to be a legend among the supernaturals, but nothing is provided to prove it. She confronts a youth with a dialogue like “Do you know who I am? Tell me where he is or else...”, and that seems enough to intimidate the girl.

And it doesn't help that all the while she is walling in sorrow, having barely any skill to be useful for her current assignment, other then the fact that she keeps mentioning she is the best detective in the world, something only told, never shown. We have to take her word for that, but as far as I read it didn't check out.

The author spent too much time inside the protagonist's head in every scene, making for a very slow pacing.

Read 4:24 / 11:14 39%

The world McGuire built in this book is ethereal and violent, rife with power struggles, and very compelling. I haven't read urban fantasy prior to this, and I thought this was quite well done with strong writing.

I found some aspects of the book a bit problematic, most especially the strange relationship and power dynamic between Toby and Devin (as well as Devin's Home and the children under his “care”).

I loved this book. I've just re-read it.

Maybe it's because I had very low expectations (I am one of the few people who dislike the Wayward Children series... a lot) but this was surprisingly good.
Fast-paced, fun world building, not the most original plot but highly entertaining from beginning to end. I also quite like Toby as a character and, to my own biggest surprise, I will continue reading this series.

This was a really good book. It mainly deals with fairies and changelings.October Daye is a changeling who loses 14 years of her life when she is trying to track down another fairy that were kidnapped. I had a hard time putting it down.

Ambivalent. Torn in multiple directions. Liked a great deal of the story very much, irritated by a few cliches. Will definitely read more, because I like this world, but hoping October gets a little more savvy. She is strong in so many ways, but she also screws up more than her share. What I mean is that characters should make mistakes. Some mistakes makes the story better, the stakes higher, the resolution better, but it seemed like October had just a steady stream of screw-ups that friends, allies, and a little bit of luck stop from being fatal. But maybe that's intentional, and the series is about her growth, and I want to find out and see that. I also want to see how she gets revenge on the people who harmed her in the prologue, and see what happens in regard to her daughter, and her ex. I am trying to purchase less books in 2017, and so I will probably read another Seanan McGuire book – [b:Indexing 17907054 Indexing (Indexing #1) Seanan McGuire https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1369528556s/17907054.jpg 25089153] – before I return to this series, and that might be a good thing.Learned about the author through mentions in a book called [b:The Geek Feminist Revolution 26114477 The Geek Feminist Revolution Kameron Hurley https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1442933437s/26114477.jpg 46812613] She was – and this is so unfair – targeted for stating her fears about potentially BEING targeted by ... well, read the book.

This must be cool, like the Dresden Files, right? It must be, I swear it is going to be awesome like that.
Spoiler: it really isn't.

October Daye is a private detective and half-fae, she lives with her boyfriend and their young daughter, until she gets caught by the person she was following. She doesn't die, though, but gets turned into a koi fish in a park pond for 14 years, until she turns back. Her family doesn't know about magic, so they think she just left, so they want nothing with her. Then a fae boss lady she knows gets murdered and she needs to solve the crime.

You know, by that description Toby probably sounds tough, right? She sounds like a cool person, someone who can stand her ground and just do her shit. I have bad news, she isn't. Toby Daye is pretty much an idiot who doesn't even seem to have a defined personality. One moment she says she has a hard life and was forced to be super though, the next she makes mistakes that make me think she deserves it all for not learning from anything.
Pert of the story is about her ex-bf, who is basically a scary, evil Peter Pan for the half-breed children. Toby goes on long tangents about how he is totally abusive and their relationship was unhealthy and just wrong. What does she do then? Fucking goes to him and sleeps with him because he was nice for 5 minutes. She is not some victim here, she actively makes her own life miserable through sheer stupidity.
But now that we are talking about the men around October we have to discuss that they were all her lovers or flirt like crazy with her. No, honestly, in this one book she has her baby daddy, her evil ex-bf, her nice ex-bf and then also this cat guy who haaaates her, but he is hot and flirty. Do we really need more “I'm so nothing special” female characters who have a horde of male underwear models fighting for their attention? Do we?

The other thing undefined about Toby is her worth. We are told half-human fae types are considered lowly and crap, basically not really taken in by the fae and not suited for living as humans because of their abilities. On the other hand she is connected to all the freaking people. She has her liege, who is super cool, her ex-bf, the lady who got murdered, she is a knight, she solves supernatural cases, she has other friends and such. Honestly, it doesn't really feel like she is in such a bad position when she has extremely powerful people on her side.
She also looks down on said people. Except for the ones who do her bidding, of course.

It's all written in a weird way as well. So lets just imagine someone who is a mother figure to you gets kidnapped and you can't save her. How would you describe her? I have a feeling that “kind and the most egalitarian person ever” is not the way. Egalitarian is cool, but not the way you describe someone whose loss caused you such sorrow, eh? Or if someone around you gets murdered saying “they breached her privacy and murdered her” sounds stupid. Those two things ain't the same kind of heavy. Again, I don't understand why the author made the specific choices when she was writing the book in first person, this is not how a normal human being thinks.
Then again, she seems to have a lot of faux-poetic, melodramatic thoughts. Now of course this is a first novel, which explains a lot, but where Harry Dresden is kind of charmingly goofy in his own first few, kinda clunky books... Toby is more teenage fanfiction.

I'm not saying this can't be okay later on. Maybe it is, I've seen weirder things before, but this first book is not particularly convincing. I don't like the protagonist, the lore is about fae which aren't my favourite fantasy characters, the prose is not at all brilliant, the supporting characters act like Toby is some heavenly perfect creature.
I will most likely read more of it, though. Maybe I'm just not ready to accept that this series is so uninspired and sucky. I would like to like it, to have another fairly light series of fun action and urban fantasy. So I will give it another chance, maybe a few more. For now I'm not sold. But for that Toby needs to grow a freaking spine and stop being such a plain ass nobody who is treated like solid gold.

Good night and let me take a Daye off!

Good story, good plot, good characters, good pace, but nothing very new or special. If you like the genre, you'll like the book, though maybe not love it.

I spontanely used an audible credit on this one when I saw it was narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal, who is a fantastic writer and an equally fantastic audio book narrator. That was yesterday afternoon...

This was a fast paced read and I liked the characters.

October Daye is a changeling. Half human, half faerie, she is considered weak by the full-blooded. She will prove them otherwise. She is a P. I. that took a case that will change her life forever. This has been on my TBR list for a long time. I finally got around to reading it and was amazing!! I loved this book and am hungry for more!!

Just finished re-read. Even better the second time!!

Honestly, there was some bad grammar and a few contrived situations, but mostly it all flowed very naturally and the characters were very engaging. I enjoyed it and will proceed to the next book at some point! :)

Underpowered fae solves mystery in face of overpowered baddies and betrayal. Exactly how I like my urban fantasy.

A strong introduction to a really fascinating urban fantasy world in which the fae live among humans in parallel. McGuire has developed such fascinating political and interpersonal relationships in this book and set the stage for more. The murder mystery in this one is a great way to get your foot in the door and by the time it ended I definitely had the next one cued up in my Kindle!