A History of Glitter and Blood by Hannah Moskowitz (review)

The fairies of Ferrum have come to an uneasy truce with the city’s gnomes over the years—the gnomes work as the fairies’ servants in exchange for the occasional sacrificial fairy, whose flesh is gorged upon by the sharp-toothed, carnivorous gnomes. When the tightropers, a race of acrobatic creatures, misread the situation and invade to “liberate” the fairies from their supposed predatory oppressors, most of the fairies simply flee, leaving the two other groups to battle it out for Ferrum’s plentiful resources. Sixteen-year-old fairy Beckan and her three friends refuse to leave their homes, however, and the ragtag group falls to turning tricks and other unsavory activities to survive in a city under siege. Narrative asides, journal entries, and occasional sketches reveal that this is not really Beckan’s story but Scrap’s, a boy who is helplessly in love with Beckan but who nonetheless leads her into prostitution and murders a gnome king, putting both her and her friends’ lives in danger. The players here may be otherworldly, but the conflict is familiarly human; this is an unflinching look at life in a combat zone, from its desperate bleakness to the occasional taunting, almost cruel moments of respite. Scrap’s telling of Beckan’s story adds a layer of complexity to the structure and an uncertain but comforting intimacy with each character; leave it to Moskowitz (author of Teeth, BCCB 2/13) to make a boy who is both a pimp and a killer sympathetic. A strange and satisfying mixture of Holly Black and Francesca Lia Block with its own version of a happy ending, this will find an audience with fans of dark fantasies that explore the atrocities of reality and the sturdiness of hope