The Way Home: Two Novellas from the World of The Last Unicorn
This is basically the Sequel to The Last Unicorn. At least, one of the books is, the other book is a sequel to the sequel and is much less interesting to anyone looking for more books in the same world.
The first book, Two Hearts, is the true sequel to The Last Unicorn as you are introduced to the world through the eyes of Sooz, who is a 9 year old girl who sneaks away to find the King because all the knights he had sent to kill the Griffin that has terrorized her town has been ineffectual. Along the way, she meets Schmenderink and Molly Grue, and also realize that the King is really King Lir of the first book.
This book effectively concludes The Last Unicorn as you find out what happens after the events of that novel. It gives a fitting end to every main characters of that book and you feel a little sad, but satisfied by the end of the book.
the second book, simply called Sooz is a sequel and you find out what happens to Sooz. She finds out she has a sister that has went the way of the Fae, and she sets out on yet another quest to find her sister. Along the way, she finds trouble and another new companion, and finally her sister. She loses much along the way, and gains a little, and while the trade might not seem fair, she does seem satisfied with it.
The problem with the book is that it introduces yet another world to the world we already knew. The world of the Fae is nothing like what we are familiar with, so what we’re left is just the journey of Sooz. A character we don’t really know, except from her actions when she was 9. At 17, her motivations and actions are different (expectedly so, but just as much, what made her charming is now gone).
And the world of the Fae is written much like its an alien world. And maybe it is, but you lose track of geography after a few paragraphs other than that they are still on their way to finding her sister, and probably lost, and the way back might be hard to find.
Much like the Last Unicorn, Sooz is a bit of slow burn, but becuase Sooz is NOT a unicorn, you don’t really feel like you are learning about the world through her eyes. You learn about the world of Fae through Sooz’s eyes, but becuase we’re not of the fae, we cannot nod in understanding about what she is seeing for the first time.
There’s also a huge lack of secondary characters. There’s no Witch’s Carnival with the murderous Harpy, there’s no village of riches populated by selfish cretins intent on keeping their riches. There’s no king who is ominous and not so ominous. There’s even no references to modernity like there was with the last unicorn.
There’s just the journey, and in this case, the journey is just not that interesting.
I’ll say read Two Hearts if you’ve read the Last Unicorn. You can skip Sooz and not be the worst of it.