Dust Girl (American Fairy Trilogy, #1)

by Sarah Zettel

[Angie]

I loved the historical setting of Dust Girl, the magic, and the ending, but everything else was kind of a mixed bag. Callie lives with her mother at their hotel in Kansas, but they haven't been getting any customers due to the Dust Bowl. All of their neighbors are packing up, but Callie's mother is convinced that Callie's father is going to come for them at any moment. Callie has never met her father, has dust pneumonia, and just wants to get the heck out of Kansas! Then a bad dust storm hits, her mother is lost, and a strange family checks in once the dust settles.

Those opening chapters of Dust Girl are quite fantastic and bizarre. The Hoppers appeared to be a normal, if a little eccentric, rich family, but soon enough Callie sees too much. That family is serious disturbing! They want to take Callie because of some prophecy. Well, Callie books it out of there along with Jack, a boy she helped after the storm. The two decide to head to California, since that's where Callie knows her mother is (thanks to a strange man she finds in the storm) and Jack wants a job at a newspaper. It's Jack's incessant babbling that makes her realize that she's not quite human either. Callie is half fairy, but doesn't have a full grasp on her magic.

I did love how magic worked in Dust Girl. Callie, like the other Unseelie, has a connection to music. Singing or playing the piano makes things happen. At first Callie has no control over this, but then she learns about wishes. She can use her own and those of the humans around her to create things or make events happen. Such as rain in the middle of an extreme drought. However, there is a danger to it, since it's tempting to grant every single wish and take the easy way out of everything. Of course, she runs into more evil fairies and has to come up with some interesting solutions to evade them.

I was bored in the middle and part of the last third of Dust Girl. The story moves really fast, but that doesn't mean something is always happening. It just kind of started to lose me, since it all seemed too easy and convenient. But that ending! I did not see it coming at all and was a bit shocked at what was going on. I did really like how it played out, and it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. I'll definitely be checking out the following books.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.