Blog this item

The Onion Girl

(Newford)

By Charles De Lint

(7)

| Paperback | 9780765303813

Like The Onion Girl?
Join aNobii to see if your friends read it, and discover similar books!

Book Description

Now in softcover, Charles de Lints stunning new novel of magic and danger in the modern worldIn novel after novel, and story after story, Charles de Lint has brought an entire imaginary North American city to vivid life. Newford: where magic lights dark streets; where myths walk clothed in modern shContinue

Critics

The Best Reviews: Charles de Lint, The Onion Girl

"Great fantasy" Artist Jilly Coppercorn is quite a talent whose paintings make the biggest cynic believe the painter has visited fairyland. Her landscape and creatures seem very real, as if she visited the fae. However, a hit and run driver leaves th ... (read full critics)

thebestreviews published on Fri, 17 Sep 2010

The Onion Girl

At the beginning of this novel Charles de Lint quotes from G.K. Chesterton: 'They (fairy tales) make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water.' Put another way, fantasy does not so much offer us a w ... (read full critics)

infinityplus published on Tue, 31 Aug 2010

3 Reviews

1 person find this helpful

After finishing Widdershins I decided I really needed to go back and re-read the Onion Girl. The book which Widdershins was kinda a sequel too. It was interesting to see how in this book there was a much less of the magical fairy tale type reality and much more of the real world. It seemed to be aro ... (continue)

After finishing Widdershins I decided I really needed to go back and re-read the Onion Girl. The book which Widdershins was kinda a sequel too. It was interesting to see how in this book there was a much less of the magical fairy tale type reality and much more of the real world. It seemed to be around two thirds of the book took place in the real world and most of that was about coping with abuse and tragedy.
The two main characters of the book, Jilly and Raylene had both been horribly abused as children. Jilly is a character whose appeared a lot before, Raylene was new. In this story Jilly was the "good" character and Raylene was "bad". Though I really didn't see it that simply in my mind. Jilly ran away from her brother, became a junkie and a prostitute and was "saved" by a social worker and given a chance to finish school, and became an artist whom everyone liked. In this story the tragedy she faces is being hit by a car and becoming crippled. Raylene seemed much stronger. She had a close friend she stayed with her whole life. Her friend gave her a knife and she was able to stand up to her brother, cut him so he'd stop abusing her. She was determined not to become a prostitute, and never got into drugs. She was strong and clever and used her knowledge to take care of her and her best friend. Though of course she also became a con artist and a thief, but she managed to pull herself up and never relied on outside help.
It was a very interesting book, without such heavy moralising, and without a happy ending, especially compared with Widdershins. It seemed less exciting but much more tragic. There was a lot more sitting around talking and a lot less going around and rescuing people. It was interesting to read the two back to back, and in the wrong order. I think I did prefer Widdershins, and you could probably read it without reading this one first, but they do go very well together. There's just a couple times where the gritty realism doesn't quite seem real enough. But I did really enjoy it, particularly the characterisation was very good. And as I said about Widdershins you can really picture everything that's happening and it totally absorbs you. It's good to go back and remember why you like an author so much.

Is this helpful?

Robot-mel said on May 3, 2009 | Add your feedback

This book has given me a lot to think about, Charles De Lint has something magic himself

Is this helpful?

s.mira said on Jul 20, 2011 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

Story of Jilly Coppercorn - long! Starts with her being hit by car. Before she can heal her body, though, she needs to heal old hurts inside - like facing the little sister she left behind when she ran away from home. Good beginning, okay ending, dragged a bit in the middle. I really like Jilly ... (continue)

Story of Jilly Coppercorn - long! Starts with her being hit by car. Before she can heal her body, though, she needs to heal old hurts inside - like facing the little sister she left behind when she ran away from home. Good beginning, okay ending, dragged a bit in the middle. I really like Jilly as a character in the other Newford books, but overall, I felt a little disappointed with this book that really focused on her own story.

Is this helpful?

Bashful said on Oct 12, 2008 | Add your feedback