"He missed you 
 like a fish in a bowl 
 misses the open sea." 
 I have rewarded all three books in the Fairyland-series with five stars. From one end to another, no exception. Therefore it can be hard to tell the difference in my ratings and in my reviews. The obvious conclusion is that I adore all three of them. And I do. But they are in fact three very different books. 
 The first book in the series was delightful. Filled with impossible creations and soaring bits of mythology with a hint of dream-world-surrealism it entertained me from beginning to end. 
 The second book in the series was heartfelt and touching. As I read it I wondered, I sighed and I fell in love. It is the first time a sequel has become my favorite in a series. 
 And then, this third book is something else entirely. It seems like every time I find myself wandering about in Fairyland looking for a new adventure, everything changes. You never know what to expect of Valente - and yet she never disappoints. 
 While the two other books are a chaos, a whirlwind of characters, plot twists, adventures and imagination, the third seems to hold back a bit. It is silent in a way that contrasts with the two other book in the series. Despite (or perhaps because) of being older, September moves more slowly, having grown a heart to weigh her down. She is 14 years old, and she is a bit lost. Her increasing lack of belonging, the fact that she is torn between Fairyland and the Real World, torn between being a child and being a teenager, seems to be haunting her in every corner of her mind. 
 "What others call you, you become. It's a terrible magic that everyone can do -- so do it. Call yourself what you wish to become." 
 This book is very bittersweet. September finally reunites with her beloved friends - and not only their shadowy ghosts. Ell, September and Saturday are a happy trio for a very brief second, and then everything changes. 
 Ell shrinks and Saturday's older selfs are running around, ultimately taking a path Saturday himself can never reconcile with. September catches a glimpse of her fate, and she fears it. She wants to be able to choose for herself but feels trapped by a predestined and unavoidable prophecy. 
 Ultimately this is a tale of controlling and coming to terms with your fate. Valente argues that you can always rewrite or even relive your fate. Nothing is set in stone. Not even for dear little September and her grown-up heart. 
 There's a certain sense of melancholia connected to the phase of growing up, and Valente fills the book with it - the story is soaked in remembrance and goodbyes, so that you can almost feel it dripping from the pages. There are some beautiful moments of that tingling sensation of the very first love, and September and I almost hadn't enough room in our hearts to contain it. But we managed it, and our hearts grew larger for the effort; which is what this series is all about after all. 
 Once again Valente writes beautifully. Her words feel like a shower of gentle kisses, shimmering shooting stars and childhood nostalgia. It washed in over you in soft waves, wrapping you up in a world of fairy tales and wonder. 
 Valente uses a great deal of words - and yet there never seem to be quite enough anyway. You're always left, lusting for more, like a fragile child wanting just one bite more of that lovely sugary cake that will ruin your teeth. Reading these books has made so many other children's books feel flat. It cannot be helped. 
 "A silent Library is a sad Library. A Library without patrons on whom to pile books and tales and knowing and magazines full of up-to-the-minute politickal fashions and atlases and plays in pentameter! A Library should be full of exclamations! Shouts of delight and horror as the wonders of the world are discovered or the lies of the heavens are uncovered or the wild adventures of devil-knows-who sent romping out of the pages. A Library should be full of now-just-a-minutes and that-can't-be-rights and scientifick folk running skelter to prove somebody wrong. It should positively vibrate with laughing at comedies and sobbing at tragedies, it should echo with gasps as decent ladies glimpse indecent things and indecent ladies stumble upon secret and scandalous decencies! A Library should not shush; it should roar!"