“Jack of Kinrowan”, by Charles de Lint

De Lint, Charles. Jack of Kinrowan. New York: Tor, 1995. Print.

A dear friend brought me this to read in the hospital in August, when I found myself there for a few days longer than expected.  Hospital reading is tricky – although I thought it would be a great chance to catch up on some things, it turns out that between feeling unwell (after all, why would I be there?) and the natural commotion of a ward room, it’s pretty difficult to summon up the attention for most books.  She got it just right, saying that she didn’t think she needed to go as far as “chick lit”, but that something light would be appreciated.

I was immediately drawn in by this re-imagining of the Jack the Giant-Killer tale, with an Ottawa woman in the main character of Jack.  I also liked that her best friend drove a red VW Beetle, making it easy to imagine myself into the story!  My only complaint with the book was that it seemed over half-way through, and the second half to be unnecessary; this could have been avoided if I’d read the back cover more carefully and realized that it was two novellas collected together.  But like I say, I was not at my best.

I see now that this is listed as an ALA Popular Paperback for Young Adults; that makes sense to me, although I didn’t necessarily get the sense that De Lint was writing it specifically to be a YA book.  I recommend this if you’re open to reading about elves and related creatures, especially in the UK tradition.  Apparently it’s part of a genre of “urban fantasy” that is a new idea to me, so I can’t comment on whether it’s a particularly good representative of the genre, but I certainly enjoyed it as an introduction to it.