Monday, December 13, 2010

2010 book 289

Charles de Lint's The Painted Boy
De Lint is one of those writers I've always meant to read but never got around to, but he had a book come out this year that got some positive attention so I figured now was the time. Anyway, this is a fantasy set in the modern world, where there are people who are animal/spirit kinds of things. Chinese-American teenager Jay comes from a line of dragons and is marked with a dragon, and somehow ends up in the Arizona desert, making friends and figuring out his place in the world. Though things are slightly more action-packed than I'm making it sound. I will say, at first I felt weird reading a book by a white Canadian dude with predominantly Mexican characters set in "the barrio" and using all sorts of Mexican/gang-related slang, but eventually I got caught up in the story enough to get past that. Now I'm thinking I'll check out more of de Lint's stuff. B+.

No comments: