Reading Response 2: The Hunt of the Unicorn

Disclaimer Clause: Key twists of this story are expounded upon.

C.C. Humphreys writes a tale of a New York City girl going into another world, the world of Fantastical Beasts. Alice-Elayne finds that the fantasy book about her family history is actually true! While there, Elayne meets Marc, a player; Leo, the king to be; Moonspill, a unicorn; and Amaryllis, the fiancé of Leo. Leo wants Elayne to help him tame Moonspill so that he may kill him. Moonspill wants Elayne to help him get back his wife Heartsease and kill Leo. The weavers, rebels, want the death of the king as well. Marc is called a player due to his career in acting, and he claims to be a weaver. All these people, or beings in the case of Moonspill, want something from Elayne, but all she wants is to go home to her sick father. Elayne weaves herself through deceit and manipulations so as to succeed in what she wants to do.

Now Marc is quite the character in this book. The first time Elayne met him she had thought he was a female, as he was in a costume brandished a knife at her in surprise. From there, he told her of the prophecy surrounding a tapestry that her ancestor had made. He sticks with her throughout the book until the end. The realization of his trickery came about when he said, "No, maid. There is no escape now. There is only... obedience." He said this when he had captured her and Moonspill to bring to Leo. Through the whole book he was truly obedient to the Leo, which means he was never a weaver. This came as a shock since he was always helping Elayne out. The only hint, in hindsight, that he might have been a double agent would have been when Leo had been paying the acting group for their skills. Leo had called out that marc was a weaver, yet paid the group three gold bars. I should have realized that Marc could not have been a weaver if he was allowed to live. This picture represents Marc because he helped Elayne and then betrayed her. He was good and evil to Elayne.

This book focused a lot on Elayne's perspective of the people around her. Each character has their own agenda and the story is heavily influenced by the character's ploys. There are two main sides, yet each side has a kindness and hardness to them. Secrets and information that Elayne was not aware of worked against her, such as Amaryllis and Marc were siblings. The book shows a realism that is not commonly found as most fantasy books make the characters more honest than most people in reality. I liked this book and the subtle impressions made by each character that left me wondering. The flack for reading a unicorn book was worth it.