Ballad: A Gathering of Faerie (A Lament Novel)

Prologue: I’ve read, I believe, all of Stiefvater’s novels, and I think that she an amazing writer. I am also not writing this as a teaser, so there will be reveals that you shouldn’t read before you read the first book.That said I had a hard time getting into this book—not sure why, but perhaps because the major character from the first novel steps back and (semi-central) James becomes the pivotal character. They have moved on from their prior school to a famous high school for musicians. And they have also moved on, to some extent, from each other. Dee’s communication to James consists primarily of unsent text messages. While James is working hard to understand this new, odd school, he starts hearing music coming from the hills, and seeing and hearing one of Them who wants to become his mentor in exchange for . . . . Where is the music coming from? What does she want from James?Read on to find (some of) the answers. Oh, and as was mentioned above, this tale has a walloping finish—two late, late nights for me.

I can't believe it took me this long to finish this particular book of Stiefvater's. This now leaves me with only one book of hers that I have yet to read. Ballad was exactly as the name indicates. The story seemed to form it's own music in reading. What Stiefvater can do with words mesmerizes me. I am a true fan for life. I loved loved loved Nuala and James. Their characters are two of my favorite characters out of all the characters I've ever read from Stiefvater. Their story is beautiful and yet tragic at the same time. You can't help but feel their every emotion and be drawn into this wicked web that is weaved through out each chapter. Trust me when I tell you that this is a book you won't be disappointed with.

**spoilers below**It took me a month and a half to read this book...FAR TOO LONG. I just couldn't get into it. I was still caught up on Dee and Luke and when I started reading and figured out there wasn't going to be any real closure on that relationship, I was a little saddened. I hated the character Nuala from beginning to end and by the end of the book I wasn't that fond of James either...he ended up looking like a real jerk. I understand that he was in love with Dee. But he had years to tell her and waited until she fell in love with someone else to do so (typical) Then gets pissed at her for not feeling the same way and gets frustrated at her being heartbroken over her losing Luke (I'm assuming that's what has happened if there isn't going to be a book about them). Give the girl some time and credit for what she did do. I mean she did choose to save his life (james) over LukesI'll admit it was wrong of her to kiss James knowing how he felt about her and then tell him she was thinking of Luke while she did it...that was a pretty crappy thing to say and do. But other than that she was nice to James even when she needed him and he was too busy obsessing about her loving him. When Dee and Luke were together she never once rubbed it in James's face the way he did with his relationship with Nuala. Yeah, we get it he was moving on but did he really have to be such a (add really bad word here)I just really didn't much care for this book and I only read it b/c I had bought it and started it and I didn't want my money and little bit of time go to waste.There were parts in the book that just seemed kind of stupid and silly and I just didn't get it. Like, James dies when chasing Cernunnos????? Did he drag him through water? Did he die from just touching Cernunnos? Did Cernunnos just stop running and decide to kill him? And how did Nuala die too? Or where they really dead? They whole section seemed like it was added just to help with some sort of information that needed to be passed on to the reader but it just added to my hate of this book. When and why did Dee kill Linnet? Did she really see Luke? She mentions how They tricked her...how? Too much was said and then ignored later on so that I was left hanging and wondering. Una and Brennan appeared a bit why couldn't Luke? Frustration frustration.I guess I can see where people who are fans of James will like this book but I didn't know I was supposed to be pulling for him in the last book so I didn't really pay much attention to him until he grew a pair (too little too late)and told Dee he loved her. UGH..... This book just frustrates me and puts me in a bad mood. lol.On a different note...the description of things was beautiful. I could picture every little thing and all the colors and I could even imagine the smells.Since James the jerk and Nuala the (insert bad word rhyming with witch here) got a happy ending, all I can hope for it that Maggie Stiefvater will find it in her heart and creative imagination to give Dee and Luke one as well.I know a lot of people won't agree with me on this but that's ok...it's just different opinions. but I wouldn't mind it if anyone would like to clear up any of the questions above. :-)

I know a lot of the reviewers comment that this didn't live up to the first book. That Dee was a shadow of herself or the writing or story didn't flow in quite the same way... I get where they're coming from, but I don't entirely agree. This book has its own kind of beauty in it. It's different from Lament. It's a different storyline, different POV and, most significantly, the characters are different because they've been shaped by what happened in Lament. <Spoilers for Lament ahead> James nearly died and he declared his love to Dee without any response from her, then watched as she fell in love with another man. Dee chose her best friend's life over giving her true love life to be with her, thus losing him to the fairy realm. In one fell swoop she lost her best friend (because the "L" word was tossed out there and can never be taken back) and her soul mate (because to not die forever he's now stuck in fairydum somewhere).So when we start this book, they are changed. Dee may be shell of herself, but it didn't feel like a plot device as much as a real continuation of her story, only Ballad wasn't her story, it was James's story, so that shadow was cast against the light of his tale. Yes, it was sad that Dee lost so much of herself, but I think it made sense that after being so brutally used up by the fairies and then losing so much, she had lost so much of herself. So it was probably a good thing this wasn't her POV story, because she'd lost her fight.James is a brilliant character and I loved being in his head for this book. The first person POV shifts between him and Nuala were distinct and engaging and the storyline kept me turning the pages. In addition to the beauty of this author's prose, I love the depth of emotion, the raw humanity of it, even as we're transported to a magical world-within-our-world of fairies.This is a definite 5 star read, in a different way than Lament, but still extraordinary and beautiful.

Those of you who are not writers will have to bear with me a moment. Those of you who do make a living writing, will know what it is to hand in a book. Before it, there are the weeks, possibly months, of lock-down, when your friends think you've given up on them, your partner thinks you've fallen out of love, your parents and children think they've lost you to some cult which prevents you from ever contacting the outside world and when they have the bad grace to die before the book's done, and their surviving spouses want some kind of input, they are surprised when you bite their heads of because, don't they get it? Nothing Matters But the Book.Strangers who think they can just ring up in the middle of a working day (which stretches from getting up to going to bed) are put right with very little sympathy or tact, editors get one-line answers to lengthy emails, planned meetings with agents are cancelled because the book isn't done yet.And then one day you come to the end of the fifth, or fifteenth draft and suddenly all the pieces have slid into place and the writing is at last coherent and your editor who said, 'the answer is always in the text' was absolutely right and you've put the last full stop at the end of the last sentence and tidied up the presentation and attached it to an email and hit 'send'...And then there's the vacuum of afterwards. Granted there is a pile of admin to be done that would reach to the ceiling were it not all electronic, but there's a gap when you can't touch the book because it's gone to someone else who is going to edit the version they have and the one thing worse than handing in a poorly finished book is messing with it aftewards: version control is everything.That's when you need to sit down and devour someone else's writing. You know it took them a year of hard work to create, but you're still going to read it in a day. Or less. You need absolutely stunning, magical, wonderful, awe-inspiring writing, but it needs not to be in your field. It needs to be utterly impossible for you to sit there and wish you'd written it, or wonder why you hadn't written something just like it. It needs to be different. And inspiring. And how hard it is, exactly, to find that kind of a book amidst all the absolute drivel that is printed and published?Very hard. But Ballad, by Maggie Stiefvater is that book. Granted, it would help if you're read it's predecessor, 'Lament' first, but you don't have to, and actually, it won't hurt if you read them in reverse. Lament was about Dee, who fell in love with Luke - the faerie assassin sent to kill her - and Ballad is about Jamie, who loved Dee, but falls in love with Nuala, who lives by feeding off superbly talented young men. And Jamie is as talented as they come. It's a love story. It's a faerie story, but these are not Tinkerbell 'say-I-don't-believe-in-fairies-and-watch-them-die' kind of fairy, these are faeries, and they kill people. They don't like iron, they can be summoned by burning thyme, they are afraid of Cernunnos, in his guise as the Thorn King, Lord of the Dead (Stag-dreamers, read this; you'll love it) - or they were until the new queen of Faerie, devised a way by which they might ally themselves with Him.It's a school story too - Thornking-Ash is a boarding school for talented musicians, but the teachers know more than they should do about Faerie and the narrative arc of Sullivan, the coolest teacher in the world, is outstanding.It's the use of language that sets Maggie Stiefvater's writing apart. The sheer, glorious poetry of every line. The ability to get inside the heads of her characters, so that everyone, even the most minor, is full and rounded and not a cardboard cut-out two-dimensional cipher. These are real people, who can hear the Thorn King singing.And then there's the plots - she understands the rules of the old Celtic ballads, of the ways They (the faeries) work. But she knows that rules are there to be broken and it's in the breaking of them that she shines.Read this: it's easy, it's wonderful, it'll make you laugh out loud and wish you were adolescent again. Well, maybe not the latter, but it will make you smile. And it will re-affirm your belief in the power of language and the ability of black marks on a white page to hold someone completely against the lure of computer games and all the internet holds.

It goes without saying that Maggie writes beautifully - her funny, witty and slightly mysterious storylines tend to grab me from the start. But if I'm completely honest, compared to some of her other stories, the Book of Faerie stories just haven't captured me. I think perhaps I'm not quite the right audience for the books - they are slightly more juvenile and romance driven than I could cope with; I much prefer a more complex, twisty plot with nasty, more devious characters than this. Not sure what that says about me!Ballad gives us a much better insight into James, who you might remember is Dee's best friend. So Dee has been booted from the spot of Narrator and now James is our storyteller. I liked James - he is both hilarious and observant all at once which makes for a fun protagonist. I think it's also really great to switch up narrators in a story, so I really liked that Stiefvater did this. If you're missing Dee though, never fear, there's a few text messages included which she intended for James but didn't send in the end.Largely we see how James is dealing with the fact that he obviously had feelings for Dee and they were pretty much ignored because of magical, handsome Luke (which frankly I felt was a bad choice on Dee's part!). So it's putting it mildly to say that James genuinely seems to hate her now - good for him. I'm not too hot on her either. James and Dee have enrolled at Thornking-Ash - a boarding school for the musically talented, and it practically screams Faerie the moment they get there! James then meets Nuala, a dangerous and beautiful faerie muse with the ability to exchange musical inspiration for years of human life. Dodgy; but you can see where this be going and sadly that's also evidence of how predictable the story became.Nuala is actually a pretty cool character though for the most part which made the book a little more interesting. She's feisty and exciting, despite her inherent "baddie" kind of role, and even gets her own chapters which was interesting.The problem is, aside from James and Dee's failing relationship/friendship and the newfound relationship/friendship between James and Nuala there really isn't a lot to this book. And I didn't really like any of the characters enough to let it slide that, well, nothing seems to happen! The main plot honestly doesn't kick off until a good three quarters into the book when Nuala and Dee appear to be in danger, and even that resolves too simply.I promised myself I'd read this second book to see how the story came to an end (although I've heard there's a third story in the pipeline, someday) and because I really liked the Shiver and Scorpio Races books, but honestly, I wish I'd taken a chunk out of my to-read pile that wasn't so tame. I won't be investing time into the potential third book unfortunately.

I must admit that I was nervous about reading this when I realised that focus was now on James rather than Dee. I needn't have worried. This is written in the same haunting style and I read it with a growing sense of foreboding about the finale. It was gripping.James and Dee are both attending the school for the musically gifted, Thornking Ash. They are not speaking really following the events of Lament. Although James still cares for Dee and misses her terribly, he keeps his distance and she is a shadow of her former self. Maggie Stiefvater cleverly keeps us clued in to what Dee is thinking and feeling by interspersing text messages that she has composed but never sent to James, between the chapters. James himself is a little lost. There is no-one skilled enough to teach him at the school and he is distracted by the appearance of Nuala, a rather dangerous but attractive member of the Leanan Sidhe.The story develops in a very engaging way. Maggie Stiefvater is brilliant at building atmosphere and painting a picture in your mind. Like Lament, I found myself reading the final chapters at great speed, desperate to see how it could possibly be concluded.I highly recommend this book of you enjoyed Lament or if you like Melissa Marr's books. You could read this as a stand alone, but it would be more enjoyable if you do read the first book.

Great quality and amazing book

Completely hooked from the onset, love the style of writing. Enjoyed all books in this series and managed to get a friend hooked too.