Book: The Absinthe Underground
Author: Jamie Pacton
Publisher: Peachtree Teen
Year: 2024
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “For Sybil Clarion, the Belle Epoque city of Severon is a wild, romantic dream, filled with cares, cabarets, and glittering nightclubs. Eager to embrace the city’s freedom after running away from home, she’s traded high-society soirees for empty pockets and barren cabinets. At least she has Esme, the girl who offered Sybil a home, and maybe – if either of them dared – something more.
Ever since Esme Rimbaud brought Sybil back to her flat, the girls have been everything to each other – best friends, found family, and secret crushes. While Esme would rather spend the night tinkering with her clocks and snuggling her cats, Sybil craves excitement and needs money. She plans to get both by stealing the rare posters the crop up around town and selling them to collectors. With rent due, Esme agrees to accompany – and more importantly protect – Sybil.
When they’re caught selling a power by none other that its subject, Maeve, the glamorous girl doesn’t press charges. Rather, she invites Sybil and Esme to the Absinthe Underground, the exclusive club she co-owns, and reveals herself to be a green fairy, trapped in this world. She wants to hire thieves for a daring heist in Fae that would set her free, and is willing to pay enough that Sybil and Esme never have to worry about rent again. It’s too good of an offer to pass up, even if Maeve’s tragic story doesn’t quite add up, and even if Sybil’s personal ties to Fae could jeopardize everything she and Esme have so carefully built.”

Review : The Absinthe Underground is a sweet and fun adventure, that, while not low stakes, somehow ended up feeling just low stakes enough that it didn’t trigger any anxiety while reading it. Pacton crafted a beautiful scene by introducing us to the world of Fae, showing us rather than telling us what an intoxicating other-world might look like to two girls from this world. However, where she did a fantasy world justice, I felt she let the reader down with her depictions of the city of Severon. With a name like Severon and very little explanation to the time frame of the book, I was at first convinced this story was not only fantasy but science fiction. It wasn’t until I read the author’s note (at the end, after finishing the book in it’s entirety) that I realized Severon was meant to be an 1890’s Parisian equivalent. Something got lost in translation, figuratively speaking.

Likewise, Pacton included real world names like Toulouse and Mucha when discussing poster artists whose work is often stolen for it’s one of a kind collector status, which lent a bit of confusion and complication that felt unnecessary to the story. Sybil and Esme live in the top of a clock tower in a made up city that contains real world artists, something that I have a hard time wrapping my mind around when it comes to necessity. Not enough of the pre-Fae exploration of TAU connected me to Paris in the late 1800s for the real world examples to make sense, Pacton could have made a more significant impact on the story by placing greater emphasis on the time frame and reality of the world Sybil and Esme live in, then trying to tie it to our world. She lost me there. 

Spoilers Below

That aside, the Absinthe Underground itself was beautifully described and the subsequent adventure Sybil and Esme embark upon is quite endearing. I did feel, though, that there were several loose ends Pacton left untied; it’s unclear whether they were left untied for a reason or because they were simply overlooked in the editing process. However, one seemingly purposeful loose end does find Sybil and Esme’s adventure into Fae and back into the real world marred by a broken promise to free a human they encountered in Fae and help her find her way back through the door – I find the prospect of another book exciting, I can’t wait to see what Pacton does next! She left several threads throughout the story, dropped like leaves, and I wonder if she’ll pick the all back up in the upcoming book or if we’re simply left to speculate why a forest hag might be frightened of a kitten, whether Sybil’s father was a magician, and why he tried so hard to marry her off and turn her into a “proper” young woman before she ran away. There were small explanations planted throughout the book, but not enough to satisfy the weight each of the aforementioned interactions had on the plot. 

TAU was a cute, low-ish stakes middle grade adventure book that has great potential for future iterations, I think there’s room for improvement, but that improvement could surely come in additional books. Overall, I found it easy to read and enjoyable, if not a little slow and sleepy at times.

Advice : If a low-stakes adventure through a fairy realm sounds up your alley, you’ll want to give this one a read when it debuts in February. If you like a bit of a nail biter or a faster paced adventure, this might not be your jam.