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  • Valiant

  • A Modern Tale of Faerie
  • Written by: Holly Black
  • Narrated by: Renee Raudman
  • Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (14 ratings)

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Valiant cover art

Valiant

Written by: Holly Black
Narrated by: Renee Raudman
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Publisher's Summary

When 17-year-old Valerie Russell runs away to New York City, she's trying to escape a life that has utterly betrayed her. Sporting a new identity, she takes up with a gang of squatters who live in the city's labyrinthine subway system.

But there's something eerily beguiling about Val's new friends. Impulsive Lolli talks of monsters in the subway tunnels they call home and shoots up a shimmery amber-colored powder that makes the shadows around her dance. Severe Luis claims he can make deals with creatures that no one else can see. And then there's Luis' brother, timid and sensitive Dave, who makes the mistake of letting Val tag along as he makes a delivery to a woman who turns out to have goat hooves instead of feet.

When a bewildered Val allows Lolli to talk her into tracking down the hidden lair of the creature for whom Luis and Dave have been dealing, Val finds herself bound into service by a troll named Ravus. He is as hideous as he is honorable. And as Val grows to know him, she finds herself torn between her affection for an honorable monster and her fear of what her new friends are becoming.

Best-selling author Holly Black follows her breakout debut, Tithe, with a rich, harrowing, and compulsively readable parable of betrayal, abuse, friendship, and love.
©2005 Holly Black (P)2006 Random House, Inc. Listening Library, an imprint of the Random House Audio Publishing Company
Homelessness, Runaways & Poverty Legends, Myths & Fairy Tales
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What the critics say

"Beneath its darkness, readers find well-rendered characters, a gripping plot, and pure magic." (School Library Journal)
"Exotic, sexy undercurrents....deliciously overripe writing, and [an] intoxicating, urban-gothic setting." (Booklist)

What listeners say about Valiant

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Rowan

Fantastic story, mediocre reader.

I'm going to preface this by saying that I love this book, I read it so much when I was younger that I still have certain passages memorized, so it's possible that most of my issue with the reader is just that the way she reads isn't quite like how I always narrated it in my head.
That said, I do feel the reader made some strange choices with her character voices that were at best slightly jarring and at worst irritating enough that I actually dreaded certain characters speaking.
It's not bad enough that it detracts from the book necessarily, but it's not always pleasant to listen to either.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Kristen

Might have been better

I think I might have liked this story if any of the mian characters were remotely likable. As it is it's pretty hard to finish a book when all the characters are unlikable and you secretly hope they all get hit by a train. I liked the Tithe but this book makes me question if I'll finish the series. The premise was interesting enough to get me through the book but it took me weeks to complete this one, the rather falt narrator did not help.

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