Uptown Oracle Reads… The Fairies Path

The Fairies Path Ava Corrigan

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At the Alfea International School, students come from all over the Otherworld to train. To learn magic. To discover how to control their powers. Inside the school’s castle, five students-complete strangers-are assigned as roommates:

Aisha is an athlete and a classic overachiever whose control over water is the envy of her fellow students.

Terra is an awkward do-gooder whose power over the natural world can overwhelm rivals unexpectedly.

Musa is an introvert who keeps to herself so her mind isn’t overwhelmed by the emotions of those around her.

Stella is a princess – yes, a real princess – whose command over light inspires but also intimidates.

And then there’s Bloom, the outsider, the girl from the human world whose power over fire almost destroyed her family.

These five teenagers want what every teenager wants… to figure out who they are. To make friends. To fit in at their new school. But when an ancient, long-vanquished evil suddenly resurfaces outside the castle walls, these five teenagers be forced to put their powers to the test. And they’ll discover a secret so powerful, it will challenge everything they know about the Otherworld… and themselves. 

The Fairies Path is the novelisation of the first season of Fate, with very little added to bulk up the content. In general the writing isn’t good quality and doesn’t really match the expectations as a “tie-in” to the TV show. The show feels darker and includes topics that aren’t suitable for kids, whereas this book is written as young YA/potentially even middle grade in some areas. 

Continuing about the writing itself, I found the book to be overly repetitive for no real reason. Especially in the first few pages, characters will inner monologue and say the same thing over and over. We also get things like intros to our other characters as Bloom happens to see and describe them on her first day but doesn’t include any other side characters… This kind of works for a visual format of TV to have inserts in the background but doesn’t read great on paper. 

Each POV is split by power (Fire, Mind, Specialist etc.) But then the book is also sectioned by headings of “Fairy Tale #” and “The Heart Grows Old” to split out Dowlings POV. It may be a printing error but the Fairy Tale 4 section came before a Heart section with only the quote and no content, plus sometimes it skips from first to third person.

Another issue was some dialogue isn’t even written into the book. For example, Riven often makes ‘comments’ that aren’t expanded on. This makes the book read like a first draft that they haven’t worked to put good dialogue in after. I just felt that minimal effort has been put into this book and I kind-of think it was re-written due to controversy around the show with a super small lead time.

My final issue with The Fairies Path is that it lacks a lot of the finer world building that you expect from a fantasy world. Without the budget constraints of a TV set, it would have been good to explore more of the Otherworld or at least add snippets about it. Instead the school often feels like a real life school, where they’re all still using Instagram, Snap, Tumblr and Pinterest (which also makes me second guess which demographic is this book for) and referencing Earth brands like Louboutin. This just makes the world feel even less than even the comic and animated show had, even though it had so much info to adapt from.

Speaking of the animated show, there are a few fan service lines within this novel. Our resident plant mom Terra likes to call the Winx Suitemates the Winx Club in her head (but never with the other girls involved) and it mentions the theme song a couple of times too. These little asides don’t add anything to the story though, and pull you out a little bit to remind you of how different this book is. 

A good thing about The Fairies Path is that it does help expand on a couple of our characters. There’s a bit more depth for Aisha who wants to form a team, and is trying to be the coach to pull them to victory in school. Terra also has similar goals of feeling a sense of belonging in the “Winx Club” she’s created in her head. Since these characters kinda floundered a bit in the show I’m happy we got into their heads in their POV chapters a bit more and hope it’s expanded on more in season 2. On top of individual character development, they do expand on developing relationships especially between Terra and Musa which was also an upgrade from the show. 

Overall, I wouldn’t say the book was brilliant or groundbreaking but it was a quick read (although it helped that I’d watched the show completely beforehand). I think the concepts and the story itself is interesting like I said in the show review, but it definitely lacks quality in some areas. I’m hoping there’s more novels written by more experienced writers and copy editors as I know this author hasn’t got any other books at the moment which may be some of the issue.

Positives of The Fairies Path

• Expands on characters and relationships from the TV Show
• Quick read and interesting overall plot

Negatives of The Fairies Path

• Poor writing quality

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