If I were still handselling (sigh), I would sell this to teens, and then when they came back wanting “something else like it,” I’d sell them Carrie Ryan’s The Forest of Hands and Teeth (when it came out two months later). These are sister books, in a way. Perhaps there are other books out there that deal with the same basic plotline that these two books deal with – if there are, and you know, please comment with titles.

Both books deal with an otherworldly magic of sorts that takes over and devastates our world as we know it. Post-apocalyptic fairy tales, if you would. In Bones of Faerie, a war between Faerie and the human race nearly wiped out both sides. Liza has been raised to believe that magic is evil, and indeed the evidence seems to be all around her – trees and vegetation move and can capture and kill; plants grow wildly, wrongly, or not at all; an oppressive forest surrounding her town threatens any who wander into it.

In the horrifying first chapter, Liza’s sister is born with what her father believes are clear signs of Faerie magic. He takes the baby out and leaves her on a hillside, where she is not stolen by faeries, but killed by wild animals. Shortly after, grief drives her mother to run away; she is believed to be dead. Liza knows that her father will stop at nothing to eradicate all traces of magic from their town, so when she realizes that she has begun to have Faerie visions, she flees.

Liza and her childhood friend Matthew, himself touched by Faerie magic, run off and discover another town where everything is different. Where magic is revered and nurtured rather than destroyed. Among these people she begins to learn some truths about her mother’s past as well as the Faerie-human war itself. When she learns that her mother may yet be living, she sets off on a journey that may change the world itself.

This book is just wonderful.  One of the coolest things for me is that you pretty quickly find out that these people are living in the St. Louis suburbs. Since I now live in the St. Louis suburbs, it felt familiar to me. The Gateway Arch is not the gateway to the West here, but rather the Gateway to Faerie. AWESOME.

Simner does an excellent job with the world-building, designing this devastated place in the United States that still has enough remnants of today to make it familiar. When she describes how faerie magic knocked the airplanes from the sky and pulled buildings down into rubble, you get a little 9/11 flashback – enough to be evocative and not enough to be manipulative. Liza is imperfect and doesn’t suddenly become a superhero – she’s an everyday frightened girl who has no choice but to set her feet down on this particular path.

There are some scary parts in this book but nothing to shy away from – you could certainly hand this to a tween reading above level. No older content at all, just a little violence.

The book wraps up nicely, although I certainly see potential for a sequel. (Please?)

Preorder at Powell’s or find your local independent bookstore.