[warning: mention of rape] wild things run away, stories end

[avia]

The time when you are just recovering from finishing a book (because, recovering is a good word, I think, this shaking in the heart, strange melancholy feeling), and all the world around you feels a little twilight, fae and magical... and your own words feel more strong, you feel like you can write poetry because there is poetry in your brain, and you feel powerful, and at the same time helpless, to the rush of grief.

I just finished Daughter of the Forest, by Juliet Marillier. It's a painful book, one of those books that is painful because it is true. It is written from the perspective of a woman, and rape is not a forbidden theme, but the way it is treated is very well done, I think. The pains are brought out again and again, they are not forgotten, but, it is a way that makes sense, because, to those people, the pains are not forgotten. It makes them more real, not like many weak books where a pain appears because it's convenient, and then gets thrown away on the next page.

It's also very beautiful, with all the right echoes of myth and wonder, and a deep and alive description of wild Irish magic that I think will make any Pagan's heart happy, and a love for the magical world without treating the mundane one like it has nothing to offer, but also without treating the magical one like it is foolish, and a love for the traditions without ignoring the new and a love for the new without ignoring the traditions, and sacrifice and a wild swan-heart, and so many details and so much loss and sadness and hope that the story of the Six Swans is changed for me for ever now, it will always be much more real.

Did I mention the magic? Because, the magic. It feels so true, and right.

I think, a wonderful book to follow this would be Rafe Martin's Birdwing, which tells the story of the brother who still has one swan wing, and has similar feeling, to the brother we leave at the end of this story.

But, that is not what I am doing. I have The Wood Wife, and, I need to start and finish that before I run out of library renews. Then, I want to get Shiver and Lament by Maggie Stiefvater, because they were recommended to me by Stacey, who is wonderful. "This is the story of a boy who used to be a wolf and a girl who was becoming one", it says about the series that Shiver is part of, and, yes, I think I need to read that.

And, maybe I will write for my self a little personal things on my memory blog, or something like that, while my writing mind is still awake.