Release Date: October 1, 2009Publisher: FluxAge Group: Young AdultPages: 360 PagesBook Source: Bought.
Summary:
Remember us, so sing the dead, lest we remember you
James Morgan has an almost unearthly gift for music. And it has attracted Nuala, a soul-snatching faerie muse who fosters and then feeds on the creative energies of exceptional humans until they die. James has plenty of reasons to fear the faeries, but as he and Nuala collaborate on an achingly beautiful musical composition, James finds his feelings towards Nuala deepening. But the rest of the fairies are not as harmless. As Halloween—the day of the dead—draws near, James will have to battle the Faerie Queen and the horned king of the dead to save Nuala's life and his soul. (From Amazon.com)
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Maggie Stiefvater's Ballad is a satisfying blend of myth, humor, romance, and terror. As the companion novel to Stiefvater's Lament (2008), Ballad picks up where Lament leaves off: James and his friend Dee survived homicidal faerie attacks, Dee fell in love with a soulless faery assasin, James confessed his love to Dee, and Dee didn't return it. Now it's fall, and James and Dee are both avoiding each other at the mysterious Thornking-Ash School of Music. While Dee narrated Lament, James takes center stage in Ballad with an appealing, comedic first-person voice. Given the music school setting, many of James's jokes are musical:
"I'd really thought in the back of my head that a school filled with music geeks would be different from a regular high school, but really the only thing that was different was that we played our roles according to where we sat in the orchestra. Brass players: jerks. Woodwinds: snobby cliques. Strings: overacheivers with their hands up all the time. Percussion: class clowns.
Bagpipers: me."
James, the only bagpiper attending the school, fits into his own category at Thornking-Ash. Since it makes little sense to keep a bagpipe teacher on staff for one person, James has to drive to town for mandatory private lessons where it turns out that he's so good the instructor has nothing to teach him. James has nowhere to go, not even up.
This is where Nuala*, a life-sucking solitary faery comes into the picture and also into the narration as she and James begin to alternate the storytelling. She's fierce, she's wickedly funny, and she dangles the promise of musical inspiration and the opportunity to become better at the bagpipes in James's face--and it is all described in Stiefvater's evocative, beautiful prose:
"The tune ached and breathed and twisted and shone and it hurt just to play it because it was what the pipes had been made for. Maybe what I had been made for. To play this tune with Nuala's summer-thick breath on my face and this stillness in my heart and nothing more important than this music right now."
The joy of music and artistic creation permeates the fantastic autumn landscape of Ballad. So does romance and the awkwardness of love unreturned and unexpectedly found. James, while still sorting out his feelings for Dee, begins to fall in love with Nuala, who's still deciding whether or not she wants to add James to her list of victims. It's complicated and surprisingly real and Stiefvater manages to pull it off without even a hint of cheesiness.
As a whole, I have no significant complaints about Ballad. The language and the plot are far too fun to nitpick, and I found nothing that distracted or took away from the story. As far as PG-13 moments go there are a few swear words, but they are well-placed, clearly serve a purpose, and shouldn't shock anyone who's watched TV or walked through a high school hallway.
While many of the characters--for example James, Dee, and a number of the faeries--are introduced in Lament, it is not necessary to read Lament first in order to enjoy Ballad. (I actually like Ballad more than Lament--it's more lyrical, cohesive, and has more James.) Stiefvater does a great job of telling readers everything they need to know in short summaries that fit well into the fabric of Ballad. Readers who have read Lament, however, will enjoy the familiar faces in Ballad as well as the rich backstory behind several moments in the novel.
Ballad is addictive, well-paced, funny, and complex. The conclusion races through the last one hundred pages or so and culminates in a difficult decision and a satisfying ending. In short, I loved Ballad, and I highly recommend it.
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*True story: A couple days after I started reading Ballad, I was working at the library when a young woman came to the circulation desk to sign up for a library card. Her name was Nuala. I managed to suppress my giggles and asked how she pronounced her name. She replied, "Noo-la." In Ballad Stiefvater describes it as, "Noooooola," and I'm happy to confirm that this is indeed how it's pronounced.
