Kin, by Holly Black, is an engrossing dark urban fantasy about a girl seeking the truth about her past-and her future. Rue, a typical goth teen, discovers that she is able to see the faerie realm, something that humans cannot do. After the mysterious disappearance of her mother, her father is arrested for allegedly murdering a student. Rue starts seeing strange people and creatures around her and begins to wonder if she is descending into madness. Instead she discovers that her mother is a faerie, one of the “good neighbors,” and her father, a mortal, has betrayed her, forcing her to leave the mortal realm. Yearning to figure out who she is and where the future may take her, she finds herself torn between the faerie realm and the mortal world.
Ted Naifeh’s dark, black-and-white shadowy art creates the perfect eerie mood for this tale. His fantastically detailed faeries range from a beautiful elfin goddess to devilish horned creatures, and everything in between. The city is dark and foreboding and the reader feels Rue’s angst and confusion as the world is changing right before her eyes. Full of threat, romance, illusion and faerie lore, Kin is a great installment in the urban fantasy genre. The mysteries are well established in this first book and have set the stage for a fantastic series to come.
- Posted by Cori