Elizabeth D's Reviews > Perfectly Charmed Pixie: Parsnip's Story

** spoiler alert ** 4.25/5 I enjoyed so much about this book, but I didn’t like it quite as much as the first two. I can’t quite tell if this was Parsnip’s perception or reality, but I still found it very hard to like social pixies in general. Unliked with nature or home and hearth pixies in the previous two books, I wasn’t left feeling like I really now understood the essence of social pixies. (Or maybe I just didn’t like what that seemed to be?)

The fact that Phil has so many bad experiences with them his whole life, and then the fact that Parsnip feels so trapped in the superficial, competitive world of the social pixies that he’s willing to give up weeks of his life to keep fitting in…. This just makes them seem so toxic. While I came to like Parsnip, I was still concerned about the overall group of them (unlike most of the other races which have really been showcased as having good and bad members and good and bad purposes).

I also found it deeply disturbing that not that many years ago Parsnip planned to enslave someone for his own benefit (anticipated adoration of others). This goes horribly wrong and Parsnip suffers badly for it, but just the fact that he seriously planned it as part of his social pixie life goals made me really uncomfortable. I believed that he changed given what he went through, but I can’t quite forget that this apparently seemed like a reasonable action to him six years ago.

However, I *did* end up liking Parsnip. I didn’t agree with social pixies goals, but he was clearly in a tough place trying to maintain what his nature required after being changed by trauma. I liked how close he got to Peaches and Phil, and how he didn’t judge Phil. I liked how Vander made him feel safe and how he eventually gained the strength to be himself. Vander was a lot of fun. I liked his big heart and his morals and his direct effort to counter his own prejudice against social pixies when confronted with Parsnip. Byx was hilarious, and her hair charms were the best. I enjoyed learning more about warlock, witch, and brownie magic. This is a very interesting world!

We had a little bit of Arie in the background and some other creepy criminal behaviour that seems like it’ll come up in future books. I’ve been hoping for Ray’s book since we first met him, so I’m definitely looking forward to #4!