Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary

You don't read Pamela Dean books, you fall into them and forget the world. She remembers what it feels like to be a child, and especially what it feels like to be a bright girl. Can't wait for her next book.

I am in love with this book. I've been a fan of Pamela Dean from the start, and only become more of one with this novel.Her prose is beautiful, and the closing poem alone quite literally came close to bringing tears to my eyes. I lost myself in the language, and the story, and the way she could evoke a feeling by a simple single turn of phrase.In a way, her prose is the most beautiful when she abandons the literary references for a few pages, and lets her own writing support itself. The referances themselves are pleasant for those well-read enough to identify (or to puzzle over), and by incorporating most of them into one character, and that the antagonist, she is playing with them in a new manner, unlike in her previous books, where everyone inside the story used the words.My one worry regarding them is that Pamela has too little faith in her own prose to risk abandoning them. I hope someday to see a full novel of hers with her prose, bare of literary and musical quotation; she has done it in her short works, and is fully capable of creating a wonderful work there.I do not deny that the book has flaws. Pamela's way of unfolding a plot is not the usual one. She creeps instead like a fox watching prey; minutes of stealth, slow, almost unmoving, then a single instant of leap and capture. I like this, and I find it works for me, yet I am willing to understand that others do not. Likewise, the children seem excessively mature for the ages they are assigned; yet with the exception of Tam Lin, this has been true of all of Pamela's work to date, and within the realm of the story, if not of the real world, it seems reasonable, even normal.My largest complaint is that the girls' parents, otherwise shown as responsible, leave Gentian alone to resolve her own torubles for as long as they do. And yet I'd have been madder at a Deus ex Machina ending, with the parents saving her instead of her saving herself.

If you consider yourself a literary person, you would probably enjoy this book. Gentian and her friends and family constantly refer to the wide variety of books they've read, and I enjoyed puzzling out the references. The ending does seem a bit rushed, and it would have been nice to have had a copy of the original ballad to refer to-I still don't know the original story. Nevertheless, I found myself thoroughly enjoying the company of these characters-I wish my own family was like theirs! Everyone should give this book a try. I've reread it several times since I bought it a few months ago.

This book was like reading a dream. It seemed to be one of those young adult books where everything is based upon the main character's coming of age in a universe skewed just a little crueler and more pointedly pessimistic than reality ... at first. However, I found the book in the science fiction section and it was marked fantasy, so I stuck it out. When I was through, I felt as though my world had been turned inside out and reality was in the book, where I ought to be, and I was in the dream, where I really didn't want to be. It intrigued and delighted me, and, in the places where I would normally have skipped text or description, I found myself forced to read onward. The prose was tightly woven and the references, though many, were appropriate. It reminded me of a Mary Gentle text, yet it was much more powerful and reverberating, in the same way that Patricia McKillip's writing can be memorable. I suggest it to anyone liking to curl up with a deeply intricate heroine and a masterful case of enchantment. After I finished it, I read it again, then I went out and found other books by Dean ... just to see if she wrote like that all the time. She does.

At first I thought this book was almost obnoxiously cute, but I enjoyed the fantasy intellectual universe which reminded me of so many of my own favorite books and authors, and my own eccentric intellectual family. By the end I was bowled over by the way the book captured how absolutely terrifying and dangerous youth can be for girls. The structure of the book is deceptive - rather than going for a standard plot structure, it's written as if viewed the wrong way through a telescope - which is totally in keeping with the situation, since the main character is an astronomer. This is a real tour-de-force which either you will understand or you won't. I suspect a lot of male readers will feel very uncomfortable with it, but for many women, this book will be one of those amazing experiences where a writer casts light into our dark places. Easily read, not easily reviewed - but lots of fun, however you take it! I give this book the highest rating because it's beautifully written, full of surprisingly lovely images and insights and, in the end, totally astonishing revelations. Which no doubt will go completely over some people's heads, but there you are - that's partly what this story is about. I wanted to review it because I'm liking it even better after finishing it, and want to read it again. Now that's a sign of a really good book.