#corny stone

So I was REALLY excited yesterday when the new Modern Faerie Tales bind up came in the mail a day early... until I opened the package and everything went downhill from there 😅

The book arrived in this condition. I wasn't worried about it because I can easily bring it back to any indigo store and exchange it. Except there was no invoice, no packing slip, nothing. The website says you can't return without the invoice but I'm still going to go and see what they say. I'll be really upset if I can't return it since I was only buying it as a collector item. :(

Since I couldn't get to an Indigo store yesterday, I figured I might as well sit down and at least enjoy the new story. It was being advertised as a new Modern Faerie Tales story, so I'm sure you can imagine how quickly my heart sank when I flipped to the back of the book and read: A NEW SHORT STORY SET IN THE REALM OF FAERIE. The last canon MFT only story was published NINE WHOLE YEARS ago, so it feels like a pretty big slap in the face to be told we're getting a new one only to find out it's more cameos. There's one whole update on Ravus and Val's relationship and that's all. To make matters worse, it's not even well written. It feels really forced and reads like a mediocre fan fiction.

I'll be posting the short story later today hopefully, it's called The Lament of Lutie-Loo and it's about Lutie trying to find Ethine, who is still pissed at Roiben about the way Ironside ended. Kaye, Roiben, and Balekin each play a small role, and Ravus, Val, Cardan, and Nicasia all make appearances. Corny and Luis are only mentioned.

I feel pretty cheated and I think other Holly Black fans will be disappointed as well. I was hoping for an update on where everybody is at, not more cameos, and I'm especially not happy that Ruth and Kate weren't even mentioned. (What the hell happened to Kate???) This felt more like a ploy to make money off of Folk of the Air fans than it did a celebration of this trilogy. I also would have liked it way more if all the short stories were in the back of this book, because what's the point of a bind up if all the content from this series isn't included? (I have a bind up of The Spiderwick Chronicles and it has all the content ever published related to that series, so I hoped they would do the same for this one)

The only positive thing about this bind up is the pretty cover art and the illustrations inside. I would have liked to see a map of the MFT universe to match the map of the High Court. Overall, I wouldn't recommend spending money on this and I'm seriously considering just trying to get a refund for it and not exchanging at all. It's pretty, but I already own all three books and I didn't care for the short story at all.