Huntress

Locations
Call Number: Teen Fiction
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown Teen, 1st Floor 4-week checkout	Teen Fiction	4-week checkout	On Shelf

Prequel to: Ash.
Maps on inside covers.
Seventeen-year-olds Kaede and Taisin are called to go on a dangerous and unprecedented journey to Tanlili, the city of the Fairy Queen, in an effort to restore the balance of nature in the human world.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

School Library Journal Review
Booklist Review
Publishers Weekly Review
Summary / Annotation
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Great book submitted by ashflowtuff on June 28, 2012, 1:09pm I really enjoyed this book. Good story, well written. I recommend it if you enjoy fantasy.

Interesting story submitted by cowmooflage on August 5, 2014, 8:23am I thought this book was pretty good. I definitely preferred this over her first book, Ashe, since it is better written and the story is more engaging. She does a great job of creating a new world

Simply Incredible submitted by torikaebaya on February 4, 2017, 12:20pm Ingeniously and beautifully written, it is truly unfair that Huntress has not received further awards and accolades. Being no stranger to the genre, I nevertheless found Huntress to be a wonderfully crafted coming of age story with surprisingly fierce “Woman Against Nature” structure.

Academically perhaps Huntress's most alluring quality lies in its setting: an amalgamation of Warring States Period Iron Age Chinese culture with European Fairy mythos. Although ultimately the Fae elements proved dominate, this combination of seemingly dispirit anthropology and folklore combined to create a wholly believable, compelling and startlingly teleological schema. Though given its bold move to incorporate ancient Chinese anthro into the mix, one might expect (in my case hunger for) more Tao proverbs, codes and ritual than what the reader is treated to. The burial rituals and protection spells were a nice touch though.

In addition, I’m blown away by the choice to create a plot that’s driven by Predestination Paradox. Seemingly very original for the genre (generally only seen in science fiction time travel stories), the plot hook which could have felt totally contrived actually feels appropriate and just plain cool.

Yet, the heart of Huntress lies not in its setting, but in its characters. Unlike Ash Lo’s second book in the “series” (for lack of a better word) offers the reader a fully-fleshed out understanding of both the protagonist and her love-interest. In fact all the primary characters are given their own small say as POV shifts continuously throughout the book (an odd but understandable choice). Naturally our heroine and huntress, Kaede, is given the primary focus of the story and her description and appreciation of natural beauty do not let us down. Yet, it’s really her... “companion” (not strong enough, more like her raison d’etre) Taisin who undergos the most dynamic character development. Taisin is a gifted young cleric who’s often unsure of herself and antisocial. Taisin lives in fear of a destiny she’s precognatively aware, but with enough hopes and dreams to allow Kaede to slowly draw her out. Eventually this bond helps Taisin realize her potential and decide who she is and who she wants to be. In the broadest sense the relationship represents a growing teamwork, as the girls come to recognize each other’s complimentary gifts. Through their internal psychological and psychic trials and external near-death journey together Kaede and Taisin eventually move beyond teamwork to something much greater and find destiny need not be avoided at all costs.

Additionally, I’d like to elucidate for a moment the ways in which Huntress is a natural progression from and improvement on Ash. In its ending (I do not intend to spoil), Huntress demonstrates how Lo has recognizes that a happy-ending is not always the most effective or desirable closure to a fairytale. As previously mentioned, Lo has chosen to offer the reader a better understanding of her characters’ hopes and fears and mental state. Also, by placing Huntress in the far past in relationship to Ash, Lo was allowed to greater explore who the Fae are and what species still existed at that time (the only detriment I can perceive by placing Huntress in the past is the loss of the lovely Renaissance diction and accent). Although it has recently become unfortunately endemic in young adult lit, the Wild Hunt is given form and the reader is treated to far fuller and more rewarding understanding of the Fairy Queen and fairy society (I wouldn’t have expected Taninli to so closely resemble Baum’s Emerald City, but whatever...). In terms of form, where Ash appears to follow a storybook/folktale fantasy aesthetic, Huntress has diverged into an adventure/suspense fantasy. Though both are wonderful reads, one gets the sense that Lo is moving slowly moving away from storytelling and incorporating more novel-like elements.


Yet, if Lo recognized the need for more character development, one must pause and consider why she chose to leave her antagonists all but voiceless and without any more concrete development. Naturally, being a young adult novel, the tendency is to relate to the heroine, but I’ve always thought this does little to prepare adolescents for the real world. In Ash the reader is treated to a clear cut understanding of who Aisling’s relatives are and how they perceive her. Although such an understanding is hinted at in Huntress, the reader is still left with something of an engima in its villain. Perhaps this was intentional, or a suggestion on the part of Lo’s publisher but if so I’d love to know why.

All in all, after reading Huntress I’m left feeling very satisfied with very few gripes. Huntress is simultaneously a breathtaking romance, a Tolkien-esque journey against unearthly monsters and incredible adversity and a fight against time to save the world (not to mention an adorable contribution to Young Adult Feminist and LGBT Lit) . Simply put, it’s incredible.

An Improvement submitted by Maria Maguire on August 7, 2017, 1:22pm I read Ash, by the same author, before this and was pleasantly surprised to find this book was much better. In Ash, the author didn't spend much time exploring the lives of any character except the title character. In Huntress, she gives the reader much more back story on every character, making it a funner and more relatable read.

Another difference between Huntress and Ash is that Huntress has a more nuanced ending, not the happy fairy tale ending of Ash. Overall I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who liked Ash or enjoys fantasy stories. As this story is set before Ash, you don't need to read the earlier book to read this one.

Okay submitted by zmclaugh on July 29, 2018, 2:44pm Very distracting POV changes, sometimes in the same paragraph, and pacing that feels off. I do agree that this was an improvement from Ash--there were more interesting things going on, at least.

Amazing Book submitted by kitkat_l on June 11, 2022, 3:04pm One of my all-time favorite books! Amazingly written characters and a great plot in a fantasy setting. I'd recommend it to everyone!