The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar

Despite the length of time that it took me to finish this relatively short book, I loved it. This is my first experience with Martin Millar and it certainly won't be my last. In fact, Lonely Werewolf Girl is ranked pretty high on my wishlist right now. The Good Fairies of New York is a book that I can see becoming a cult classic someday. It reminds me much of the already cult status, Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. It has a wonderful offbeat humor that had me laughing aloud many times and also has a very sweet and endearing undertone to it that just blends in perfectly. The book opens with two fairies by the name of Heather and Morag who fly into a man named Dinnie's bedroom and then proceed to vomit on his floor. Fear not though, they insist that fairy vomit smells pleasant to humans. After freaking out for a few moments, Dinnie eventually comes to accept that he is indeed seeing fairies despite his annoyance with them. Upon learning that Dinnie has the same last name as Heather, Heather instantly wants to be assured that he can play the fiddle as well as she can. So she stays with him. Morag on the other hand has a blow out fight with Heather because she insists that her family name has the proper rights to "best fiddler," so she leaves and finds a companion to stay with across the street. That companion is Kerry, a young lady who happens to have Crohn's disease and has to wear a colostomy bag. Heather is tres chic though. She's an artist at heart who is currently compiling a flower alphabet based on the Gaelic alphabet where flowers represent different letters. The reason for doing so is to win a competition against Cal (who happens to be producing a version of A Midsummer Night's Dream) who once refused to teach her all of the New York Doll's guitar solos basically because she wore a colostomy bag. Confused yet? Well throw in a schizophrenic homeless woman who swears that she is in a constant war, some Asian fairies, Black fairies, and Italian fairies, some fairy disapprovement from over seas, and a Welsh Poppy and you have the rest of the story :p Oh, and Heather and Morag are both trying to get Dinnie and Kerry together as well despite the fact that Dinnie's personality is polar opposite of Kerry's. My love for this book has no bounds. I know that it sounds horribly confusing, but it's really not at all. It's just my review :p It was a wonderful book that had me laughing and surprisingly a little misty eyed at times. I loved Kerry's character and the dynamics between the fairies Heather and Morag. Everything about this book just worked perfectly for me. This one had been on my TBR shelf for so long now, but I'm glad to have finally read it. That seems to happen often with this book. Neil Gaiman says in the introduction that he had this book sitting on his shelf for 5 years before he read it. He loved it too. Don't make the same mistake as me and Neil...read it now.