The Impossible Fairy Tale
The Impossible Fairy Tale is the story of two unexceptional grade-school girls. Mia is "lucky"she is spoiled by her mother and, as she explains, her two fathers. She gloats over her exotic imported color pencils and won't be denied a coveted sweater. Then there is the Child who, by contrast, is neither lucky nor unlucky. She makes so little impression that she seems not even to merit a name. At school, their fellow students, whether lucky or luckless or unlucky, seem consumed by an almost murderous rage. Adults are nearly invisible, and the society the children create on their own is marked by cruelty and soul-crushing hierarchies. Then, one day, the Child sneaks into the classroom after hours and adds ominous sentences to her classmates' notebooks. This sinister but initially inconsequential act unlocks a series of events that end in horrible violence. -- amazon.com
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It's been back to back reads with strange meta-narrative, mobius plot threads (I followed this one with Bats of the Republic)
The Impossible Fairy Tale is weirdly unsettling and moves ahead with a grim inevitability following the intertwined lives of two 12 year old girls. The language skitters off on strange tangents and plays with words in a way that must have proven a unique challenge to translate. Violence and death constantly linger in the periphery but the tangents pulled me out of the story making me wish for the relentless energy of Samanta Schweblin's David in Fever Dream, who kept the narrative on its creepy track.
The novel then shifts it's focus halfway through and the book becomes something else entirely. I just couldn't get invested enough to truly follow along and make the necessary connections. And I was frankly still catching my breath from the ending of the first half. Inventive and challenging, it just wasn't what I was after.
