Line #12 Literature/CuckooSong


1	[[quoteright:342:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cuckoo_song.png]]
2	Theresa Crescent, or Triss for short, seems to have recovered after her accident with the Grimmer - whatever it has entailed. All should be well. Except nothing is. Chunks of her memory are missing, she suffers from unsatiable hunger, her little sister is scared witless of her and her parents seem to have a couple of secrets of their own. Her own dolls threaten her verbally, scissors attack her physically and there's a mysterious voice in her head that counts down the seven days that she has left every morning. Worst of all, however hard she tries, she cannot remember what has happened on that fateful day when she stumbled home from the Grimmer, wet, trembling, helpless and in possession of none of her memories. But does she really want to remember?
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4	''Cuckoo Song'' is the sixth novel by the British children's author Creator/FrancesHardinge.
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7	!!Tropes found in this novel include:
8	* AchillesHeel: Scissors will always turn on Besiders that get close, and make an effective weapon against them. Church Bells 'used' to be one as well, but the war inadvertently made them ineffective.
9	* AlienGeometries: The Architect's forte.
10	* BerserkButton: The Architect does ''not'' take it well if you try to break a bargain with him. The reactions of the Shrike suggest that this is common for Besiders.
11	* BlueAndOrangeMorality: It's not that the Besiders are ''evil'', they're more like stuck in a state of perpetual childhood, compared to humans. Like children, they don't really understand that what they do may hurt humans.
12	* [[spoiler: ChangelingFantasy: It's questionable whether this should even be spoilered out, because this particular spoiler is right there on the author's website (the "About the Author" page, namely). However, the narration certainly treats this as a reveal.]]
13	* ChekhovsGun: One of Frances Hardinge's trademark tropes, it seems. The most notable examples are the necklace Pen gives to [[spoiler: Not-Triss]] and Sebastian's watch.
14	* ChekhovsSkill: Early on [[spoiler: Not-Triss]] shows superb balance and agility when she quite casually vaults a fence to steal a chicken. This is employed again during a [[RoofHopping rooftop chase]] at the end of the book. Also, in an odd way, her [[spoiler: slow disintegration into leaves and other debris results in her leaving a trail out of the Architect's labyrinth later still]]
15	* [[spoiler: DealWithTheDevil: Triss' parents and later their youngest daughter Pen strike a deal with the Architect - the king of fairies, that is. He's not really ''evil'', though, just... very, very wacky.]]
16	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Another favourite trope of the author. While this is not what's going on, the descriptions of Triss' constant ravenous hunger and her fits of gluttony may hit close to home for people with an eating disorder.
17	* DysfunctionJunction: Triss is a sickly child, her big brother was killed in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and her little sister Penny has, shall we say, anger management issues. Naturally, all of it has left her parents quite distraught.
18	* [[spoiler: EarnYourHappyEnding]]
19	* {{Foreshadowing}}: The snowflakes that start to fall not long after we first meet Violet.
20	* MeaningfulRename: Pen [[spoiler: starts calling Not-Triss "Trista"]] after meeting the Shrike. She keeps the name for the rest of the story, and it indirectly proves crucial later.
21	* TheFairFolk: The Besiders. There's no way of describing them except for "really, really weird".
22	* TheFlapper: Violet, apparently based on Frances Hardinge's grandmother.
23	* [[UsefulNotes/{{Britain}} Great Britain]] [[Main/TheRoaringTwenties during the Roaring Twenties]]: The setting.
24	* GlamourFailure: [[spoiler: Not-Triss/Trista]] appears perfectly human at first, but as the story goes on details such as her clawed fingers and toes, as well as her having thorns instead of teeth, start to show up more and more. The Shrike and the Architect also have human appearances that don't stand up to close scrutiny.
25	* [[spoiler: HappilyAdopted: Trista, by Violet, by the end of the story]]
26	* HorrorHunger: Triss suffers from it. [[spoiler: It turns out she is only satisfied by things important to the real Triss, and the Architect outright tells her to eat Pen at one point]]
27	* KnightTemplar: Downplayed, but Mr Grace clearly believes absolutely that the Besiders are evil and have to be eliminated. Given his past, it's understandable.
28	* NotSoDifferentRemark: Violet invokes this with [[spoiler: Trista]] In a rather heartwarming moment towards the end of the story.
29	* NotUsingTheZWord: They are NOT fairies, they're Besiders.
30	* OurFairiesAreDifferent: Averted, surprisingly for a work of modern fantasy. They're weird, sure, but they're not that different from the fairies of British folklore.
31	* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Violet, in any matters not related to the Besiders.
32	* SpoiledBrat: Pen. By the end of the book she does grow out of it. Slightly.
33	** [[spoiler: Trista later suggests the real Triss has shades of this]]
34	* [[spoiler:TomatoInTheMirror: The ChangelingFantasy mentioned earlier. Triss discovers she's actually a copy of the real Triss, who was kidnapped.]]
35	* WhamLine: observant readers will have worked it out already, but in universe, when Pen tells Tris she [[spoiler: never actually fell in the Grimmer]]
36	* YourDaysAreNumbered: [[spoiler: Not-Triss/Trista]] is on borrowed time right from the start, and begins to literally fall to pieces later on as things get worse. [[spoiler: She gets better]]

Context Literature / CuckooSong