Mortal Coil

Book Title: Mortal Coil

Author: Derek Landy

Series: Skulduggery Pleasant #5

Date Started: October 16th 2018

Date Completed: October 23rd 2018

Genres: Mystery, Fantasy, Action, Thriller, Horror

Quality Rating: Five Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Five Stars

Final Rating: Five stars

Review:

Sometimes, if I'm having a bad day or for no reason at all, I go to this book. I'm not really sure why this one - there are happier books. Some more heartwarming. But none quite get that balance of humour, fun, darkness and threat. And the moments when the characters you've been with for years crack a joke you've read a million times and it still makes you smile. Mortal Coil is definitely the most paged through from my collection, so I was a lot more familiar with it in my Skulduggery reread than the rest. I guess I didn't have those moments of rediscovering events I'd forgotten this time, because every time I open the book I find them again, and I will continue to do so.

So, how to begin a review where I've already sung the praises of this series in my previous reviews (go read those if you want coherent analysis). I'll start at the beginning: Skulduggery Pleasant was built on the mystery genre. I'm not convinced it's a genre you can really pin down, but the little quirks, the nods, the in-jokes are what began this series. So, five books in, when it dives into so many different genres - horror, action, political thriller, epic fantasy - it actually makes me really happy that our protagonists still get to solve mysteries. Sure, they end up kicking ass and saving the world as well, but they still get those little detective moments of epiphany and investigating a crime scene. It's fun. They need a little fun since they're thoroughly screwed from here on out.

Mortal Coil builds off the ripples of previous events, as all good books in a series should, while still having its own internal plot. Each book stands on its own, but really this absolutely massive story that Derek is telling can't be told in anyting but a series. The politics was established right at the beginning, and we watched it develop in trying times, and then be completely obliterated at the end of the last book. Now we see them picking up the pieces, and we can understand what a massive deal it is. The same for the characters. Speaking of...

You can always tell when a main character is going to get screwed over when they suddenly have more screen time that before. So, whenever I do go back and reread this book it hurts my heart when I notice Tanith getting all these extra little moments, because I definiely didn't see it coming the first time around. (Spoilers: Tanith gets screwed over. You may be able to tell from the spin off book that gives it away.) So, when I was younger, I didn't really appreciate Tanith. Blame it on internalised misogyny, female competition, or my obsession with wanting to be Valkyrie, but Tanith faded into the background. But as I got older, Tanith became someone who meant so damn much to me, who I started to understand more, and who shone out as one of the real heroes. So reading this book from start to finish again (even though I've read all her parts a million and one times) got to me a lot more than I expected it to. Sure, her life gets derailed big time (thanks Derek), but we also get the chance to really see her show off her whole potential both as a badass and as an emotionally driven character; we never see her cry before this, we never see her even waver really. In Mortal Coil we get to see these vulnerabilities and then see her kicking ass not that much later. She has that range that so few women get given in fiction (especially by male writers).

And really the whole series is full of more examples. Sure, Tanith is the one that resonates with me very personally, but this is really a show of intelligent, powerful adults that let themselves be immature every once in a while. It's strangely freeing, and very engaging. Because these adults have the ability to take things seriously as well, and slip between the two as naturally as actors, we can believe them when they act like children. Because everyone wants to be a little childish sometimes. Which, ironically, makes our protagonist all the more powerful. It still amazes me how little Val is in these early books - and it makes me so happy because I never (had to) notice now. When I was like a year younger than her when the books came out, it was never pointed out that she was a kid/teenager so I didn't feel patronised by it either. Ageism is something we don't really talk about a lot, but it's books like these that treat young people as, you know, people that make me want to make everyone else read it. Your child can be a child and still be powerful, independant, curious, and not feel patronised while they do it.

Pretty soon I'm going to catch up to my original reviews of these books. I started this reread because a) an excuse to reread the entire series and b) because I wanted to put into words what this series means to me. I'm not sure I've really achieved the second one since at this point everything is just me gushing over it. Though I guess if you're this far through the series you probably agree with me. We should set up a support group for the emotional enrichment - oh, and the trauma.