Time for another set of flash reviews! It was a good month for reading. Are there any stories you're particularly looking forward to this summer?
A. G. Marshall – The
Grandmother With Enormous Eyes. This
short story is Little Red Riding Hood with a twist… and I can’t say anything
else without spoiling it. Fun!
K. M. Shea – The Goose Girl
(Entwined Tales 1). What if the swap
between the princess and the lady’s maid was the princess’ idea? Can even the king’s spymaster figure out
what’s going on before somebody starts a war?
This was such an original twist on the fairy tale. I loved poor long-suffering Rynn, who gets
stuck masquerading as a princess, and whose situation is made even worse by her
awful fairy godfather and by the evil plans of an ambassador. Recommended.
Melanie Cellier – A Tale of
Beauty and the Beast. This is the sequel
to A Dance of Silver and Shadow, which I reviewed here. Chosen in a violent Princess Tourney, Sophie
is forced to travel to desolate Palinar, where a beastly prince lives in a
castle with intangible servants. He’s so
rude he won’t even speak to her… but is his situation and his kingdom’s really
his fault? And when an unpleasant
acquaintance turns up with a plan to save Palinar, will she agree to marry him
in order to bring the invisible people of Palinar back into the real
world? This was a good retelling, with
enough new material to make it feel fresh, funny secondary characters, and a
solid if predictable romance.
Recommended.
George MacDonald – At the Back
of the North Wind. An old favorite
of mine. A little coachman’s son named
Diamond meets the powerful North Wind and travels with her to many places. But my favorite parts of the story happen
when Diamond is safe at home. He is a
Little Lord Fauntleroy sort of character—a thoughtful and kind child. As a bonus, Diamond’s friend tells him the tale
of the cursed Princess Daylight, which MacDonald also published
separately as a short story. Highly recommended.
Melanie Cellier – The Princess
Game. Fourth story in the Four
Kingdoms series of linked retellings (see previous reviews here
and here). I liked this one more than Fugitive and
Pact although not as much as Companion. Princess Celeste has a bizarre curse: she has
to act stupid in front of anyone who might recognize her. (But as long as no one knows who she is, she
can be her masterfully intelligent self, which has allowed her to create and
run a spy network in her home kingdom without any other members of the royal
family noticing.) When the newly arrived
Prince William starts hanging around her both when she’s displaying her foolish
public self and when she’s her sneaky spymaster self, Celeste is going to have
a hard time concentrating on the rebellion that’s brewing in Lanover. I like the basic idea of this story—it definitely
wasn’t what I expected from a Sleeping Beauty retelling—and it has a lot of
adventure and solid character development.
Celeste’s intended arc isn’t necessarily compelling… she ultimately lets
go of her anger because it turns out that the object of her anger is a victim
too… but she also has an (unintended?) growth in her appreciation and trust for
others. Recommended.
Brittany Fichter – Beauty Beheld
– Book 3 in a series (see previous reviews here and here). What if Hansel and Gretel weren’t really the
woodcutter’s children? What if a
malicious half-Fae opened a door into the Kingdom and starting luring children
away with the smell of cookies? Ever and
Isa return to try to fix their Kingdom’s problems even as they struggle with
their own childlessness. This book was
fine. As in the previous ones, the
writing is a little rough in places and the morals are a bit too in-your-face,
but otherwise this is an enjoyable read.
Aya Ling – The Ugly Stepsister. Leaving her sister watching SpongeBob in the
living room, seventeen-year-old Kat goes upstairs to clean out the attic. But when she accidentally rips up a magical
Cinderella book she is sent into the story—as one of the ugly stepsisters. If she doesn’t guarantee a happy ending,
she’ll never be able to go home. But (Cinder)
Elle isn’t interested in the right guy… the fairy godmother is nowhere to be
found… and the prince is maybe interested in Kat, whose modern sensibilities
make her stand out. (She gets involved
in the labor rights movement, child labor laws, etc.)
I enjoyed this book; Kat’s
commentary on Victorian society is frequently hilarious. I’ll probably try another of Ling's books
sometime. But there were some things
that annoyed me. First is a pretty big plot
hole. WHERE is this place that Kat is
sent to reenact the story? According to
the goblin Krev and Kat’s own assumptions, the story world is just that—an
imaginary place that only exists within the bounds of the Cinderella story, and
only comes alive when Kat is sent there because the book had been
destroyed. But Kat walks into a fully
realized world with, y’know, problems of poverty and labor and backstory for
the main characters which does not match the Cinderella story that the
book supposedly contained. Krev the
goblin also suggests at one point that this is another dimension. So… is it real or not? And as a linked question… is her marriage to
X real or not? If yes, he definitely has
room to complain. If no, why did she
marry him? The answer seems to be no,
since after she wakes up from her “dream,” she immediately acquires a real
world boyfriend… so that YA readers won’t feel cheated because the previous
romance wasn’t real? Um.
Please note: I assumed this was a Christian retelling when
I started it, but there’s nothing in the book itself to indicate this—though
it is fairly clean.
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