Book 7: The Onion Girl

So I departed from my romance kick for another visit to Charles de Lint’s Newford with this rivveting book. Unlike Spirits in the Wires The Onion Girl lived up to its expectations for me.

Artist Jilly Coppercorn is hit by a car and left partially paralyzed. The only escape she has is through the Dreamlands, where she can do all the things she did normally. Meanwhile, her sister, grown bitter and hard from a bad childhood and adult life, seeks revenge on Jilly for abandoning her to the whims of her psychotic, molesting older brother.

This story spoke to me on many different levels. Jilly’s always been a favorite character in the Newford books, and it was nice to let her have some of the spotlight. It was also nice to see the way her accident effected the lives of her friends, particularly poet Wendy and fellow artist and dreamer Sophie. As a character study of both Jilly and her sister, this book succeeds quite well.

I only had one minor quibble with the book.

I thought that hooking Jilly up with Daniel, her nurse in the hospital, was a cheesy horrible plot contrivance, since CDL never really fleshed Daniel out very much. I mean, I get that it’s more fun to have the running thread of Jilly and her best friend Geordie having this continuous unrequited love going on, but Daniel was barely in the book at all. The least CDL could have done was make him someone *important* to the story.

So, aside from that, this was a wonderful read, and I was sad to see it end.

Rating: 99/100