Book Review: The Blue Girl

Charles de Lint's 2004 YA novel The Blue Girl, follows two best friends Imogene and Maxine, through a year in Newford's Redding High. Throughout the novel the girls get involved in the world of Faerie (pretty much a requirement in a Newford-based story), and although there are a few familiar faces (Christy Riddell for one), this is mostly a new story with new characters in a familiar setting.

The book rotates between three narratives, Imogene, a new girl in school (and Newford), hoping to have a fresh start, Maxine, a quiet student looking for a friend, and Adrian, the ghost of a boy who died in the school years ago.

What I really liked in the story was just how small it was - there are no massive demi-gods or mystical creatures like in the Jack of Kinrowan books (which I also loved), just two friends trying to make it through the school year and getting caught up in something bigger than they expected. What surprised me the most in the novel was the depiction of Maxine's mother, who beings the novel as an almost cartoon-ish example of the controlling mom, but then changes throughout the story into a fully fleshed-out believable parent.

In the end the book was a lot of fun, and I hope I find these characters popping up in future works by de LInt.