SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire

SF/F Review: Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire: https://t.co/SbCKrbOQl4 Short Review: 6.5 out of 10 (1/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 21, 2017

Short Review (cont): Sparrow Hill Road combines a series of short ghost stories about the hitchhiking ghost Rose Marshall and her adventures into a single novel and while its often pretty fun, some of the stories are less successful and it lacks a satisfying ending (2/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 21, 2017

  Like a few other books I've reviewed, Sparrow Hill Road is a book that did not start its life as a Novel.  Rather, it was originally a set of short stories released over a year in a publication by Seanan McGuire, supposedly based upon several ghost/urban legend stories of the road.  The novel essentially takes an edited versions of 11 of the 12 short stories and puts them together into one complete story.  That said, the book's origin is quite evident as each of the 11 chapters is quite clearly a single story, even if the stories eventually build upon one another to a final ending.

  Sparrow Hill Road is set in the same universe as McGuire's inCryptid stories, although there are only minor references toward the inCryptid universe in the book, so one doesn't need to have any knowledge before reading it.  That said, if you've read any of McGuire's inCryptid short stories or some of her October Daye books, you'll be very familiar with what you're getting here - a fun breezy book with an entertaining heroine in an urban fantasy world.  Unfortunately, while parts of the book are as entertaining as any of McGuire's other works, some parts (really, some of the short stories) don't really land as well and the book kind of lacks an ending.

More after the Jump:

--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------------------
There are legends and ghost stories that share common elements across the North American continent, as if the stories are all based upon one common story.  One common story is that of the "Phantom Prom Date" or "The Girl in the Green Prom Dress," the girl killed in a car crash on her prom night.  Some say she came back to life and killed her boyfriend or others, others tell different tales.

Rose Marshall knows the real tale....because she IS the real tale.  On her prom night in the 50s in Buckley Township, Michigan, she was killed on the road.  But rather than going to the great beyond, she wound up a Hitcher - a Ghost who can take physical form when freely given by another a jacket, and who hitchhikes around the country to get around.  She's also a psychopomp, and spends much of her time around people who are soon to die on the road, trying to save them if possible, trying to help them come to terms with their deaths if they can't be saved.  Despite the stories about her, Rose simply wants to help.

But Rose's story has a part that isn't commonly told, because she wasn't just killed in a normal car accident - no she was run off the road by the Immortal Bobby Cross, who kills girls on the road and absorbs their spirits to retain eternal youth.  She's the one who got away, and Bobby will stop at nothing to hunt her down, even as he hunts other innocents.  Eventually, Rose knows, she will need to confront Bobby and find a way to stop him, or he will destroy not just Rose, not just other innocents, but the beings - living and dead - that she has come to care about.
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As in McGuire's other works, Sparrow Hill Road features a really fun central protagonist who's telling the story.  That said, Rose is still distinct from some of her other central protagonists, she is still a great narrator of the stories, who keeps them going at a nice brisk pace.  It's pretty easy to understand where she's coming from and pretty easy to empathize with her.  The book spends its first 40% merely hinting at Rose's past which will eventually drive the later chapters/stories, but the reader never feels confused, merely tantalized, by the hints, which is a real credit to the writing.

And some of the chapters/stories are really good, with some surprising twists and turns.  The several that feature Rose's living relatives/boyfriend are definite highlights and the world-building here is pretty excellent (again not a surprise for me, being familiar with McGuire's other urban fantasy works).  And if you HAVE read some of her inCryptid stories, some of the references are pretty nice touches.

That said, the format of the book - the eleven short stories held together as one novel - does kind of bite it, as some of the stories are clearly worse than the others.  Even worse, a few seem kind of duplicative - in one story for example, our main character discovers what she needs to do to defeat the central antagonist, and in a later story, she is told how to slow him down and it's practically the same thing.  And presumably because these were individual stories once, the pacing sometimes feels slightly off - not within the stories, but sort of within the story order, where an occasional fun bubble episode kind of story will show up in the middle of the longer myth arc.

The book also doesn't really have an ending.  A sequel has been announced for next year,  which I suspect will follow a more cohesive narrative, but well, the stories kind of build up to the main character taking on and defeating Bobby Cross once and for all, with her learning ways to do so, and they never come into play.  It's kind of weird- it feels like there should be like two more stories with the final confrontation, but it never happens.

Overall, the package of stories is enjoyable, but not truly satisfying.  I'll be back for the sequel next year, but if you're looking for a done in one urban fantasy story, I recommend starting with one of McGuire's other books instead.