Summary: The princess that will remain in fairytale history as the Sleeping Beauty has just been born, and has just been cursed. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so her distraught parents order the destruction of all the spinning wheels in the kingdom.

A thing that brings Talia’s hopes for a better future to an end. Without her spinning wheel there is no way for her to earn her bread, much less to gather a dowry. Without a dowry, she cannot marry her betrothed. Her only consolation is her plan to have a child by him, a little girl to chase away solitude, a little girl whose name’s already been picked. But after a while it becomes obvious that Thalia cannot have children, so she tries to quench her thirst for love into the arms of a string of men, all having something or other in common with the one she has, ages ago, been in love with.

General impression
A cute take on a fairytale we all know and love. A bit more sex than I expected, but a lot less than it could have been (there are sex scenes but there are not very many details about any of them). A fast read, with a bit of darkness added in for good measure (after all, we can never properly appreciate true happiness unless we’ve seen sorrow, right?).

Characters
The main character, Talia, is an interesting one: she is rather on the ugly side, complete with warts on her face, and yet men find her sexually attractive, which means she must have something about her. Despite the hardships she endures (and the fact that she seeks consolation, without finding it, in the arms of many men), she is essentially a good person, and one is sorry to see her being so miserable and alone. Luckily this is a fairytale so it must end well, right? :)

Relationships
I happen to very much like the love stories where ordinary-looking people fall for each other, and as such I loved reading about Talia’s meeting Willard, and their marriage plans. Sure, at first they didn’t seem to care that much about one another (their decision to be married being based on both of them’s certainty that no one else will ever want them), and I wasn’t that interested in them either, however after a while, when their feelings developed and crystallized, I … well, I wasn’t able to root for them, since by then Willard was already at a monastery, but I kept thinking fondly of what might have been. An interesting thing, to become invested in a relationship after it has already run its course; but Talia kept thinking about him fondly, and, as I was right beside her, so did I.

Plot
There’s relatively little plot, since this is a novella and all. Interestingly enough though, most of it was unexpected for me, going into a whole other direction than I thought it would have. A pleasant surprise, of course :)

Setting
I am not entirely sure how believable the setting is. Don’t get me wrong, the medieval rural life is okay enough done, but the thing that puzzled me a bit is the fact that royal heads seemed to be walking among ordinary people a bit more often than I thought they would be. A thing that detracts a tiny bit from the credibility of it all (but then again, we’re talking about a fairytale here so no one expects 100% credibility, right?).

Thoughts on the title
I don’t remember there being any sevenfold spell in the original fairytale (nor was I certain what the idea of a sevenfold spell actually entails), everything becomes clearer in the last third of the book. So yes, it’s an okay title I guess.

Thoughts on the ending
The ending was, of course, worthy of a fairytale. “And they lived happily ever after”. I loved it, of course, especially as it was a tiny bit unexpected :)

What I liked most
The very reason why I picked this book up, and the thing that I enjoyed most, was the whole idea behind the book, about what happens to the ordinary girls in the kingdom when someone sets a curse on the princess. A novel perspective if there ever was one, I think.

What I liked least
There’s nothing that has actually bothered me (although to be honest I didn’t quite get why the mother’s words became a spell, but since it was a rather cute addition to the story I will not protest that much).

Recommend it to?
Anyone in the mood for a quick light read. Fairies, spinning wheels, and a happy ending await you :)

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Summary: The subtitle says it all: “A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast”.

A wealthy merchant loses all his fortune when his ships sink, so he has to take his three daughters and move to the country, where life is cheaper. One day he is lost in a snowstorm and ends up in a mysterious castle, where all his needs were magically catered for. Just as he was leaving he sees a wonderful rose garden, and he picks a single red rose for his youngest daughter. But this small gesture has upset the owner of the castle, a frightening beast, who made the poor man swear he will be back in a month with one of his daughters or he will lose his life.

I was so bound to love this book (a Beauty and the Beast retelling, very high rated on goodreads), and it was no surprise that I did. I read it breathlessly in less than a day, and felt sorry when it was over, because I was already thinking of the characters as friends.

The author has taken the original story and, without changing any essentials, has breathed life into it. The characters are written in such a way one cannot help caring about them. Yes, yet another of those stories filled with only good people, the kind I was bound to like :)

Beauty’s real name is Honour (other female names in her family include Grace, Hope, and Mercy), and she has chosen her own nickname when she was five and unable to understand the concept of honour. To her chagrin, it’s not a particularly apt nickname: while her two sisters are tremendously beautiful, Beauty, at 16, sees herself as mousy and drab. She doesn’t let that get to her though, preoccupied as she is with her books, her horse and her daily chores. One really cannot help liking her, especially later on, after she meets the Beast, and she is always struggling to treat him kindly even when she’s afraid.

The Beast is… anything but beastly. Ugly, yes, but he has a personality I think I would actually like to meet. Two hundred years old, he has grown wise, and his loneliness and sadness made him very considerate to those around him (case in point: Beauty). He is struggling to retain his humanity in that beastly shell, sometimes with more success, sometimes with less. Like Beauty, he has read a lot, and the two characters enjoy one another’s company, making their relationship seem so very believable (even to the point where Beauty realizes she is in love with the big, ugly, hairy beast).

The writing is also a pleasure to watch. Unpretentious, conversational (because, after all, it represents the thoughts of a sixteen-years old girl), at times it contains breathtaking metaphors, or even better, whole moments.

Here is a quote I liked:

I glanced at the picture again briefly. I thought: The artist was a genius, to catch that fire-eaten look. He must have been exhausted when he was done; I’m tired after only a few minutes of looking at the finished work. “I think he died young,” I said finally. A curious silence stepped in, took my words, and tapped and shook and rattled them together, as if they would ring clear as brass or silver; and then, disgusted, blew them away entirely.

The castle itself is a lovely place, with beautiful imagery. Everything there is not only richly decorated, but also friendly, and it’s been, in itself, an experience to discover and enjoy, particularly some of the details (such as, for example, Beauty’s room always being just around the corner whenever she got lost).

Interestingly enough, the author has written another, a second retelling of The Beauty and the Beast story, decades after writing this one. I know very little about it, but I cannot believe it can be as good as this one :) (but, of course, I plan to read it and find out)

Thoughts on the title: Self explanatory :)

Thoughts on the ending: I was as glorious as I hoped it would be, and all went downhill from there :(
show spoiler

What I liked most: The library, of course, hands down :) Although I cannot even begin to fathom how it must be to read about Sherlock Holmes and his adventures so many centuries before his time. I liked the idea of not confining Beauty to reading the books of her own age :)

Also, I very much liked the way the curse upon the Beast came to be:

“It’s an old family curse of sorts. My forebears were, um, rather over pious, and overzealous in impressing their neighbors with their piety. After the first few generations of holier-than-thou the local magician got rather tired of them, and cursed them; but unfortunately their virtue was even as great as they made it out to be, and the curse wouldn’t stick. So, being a magician, he settled down to wait for their first erring step. My family laughed, which didn’t improve his temper any—and unfortunately for me, at last, that erring foot was mine.”

What I liked least: Dare I say, Beauty’s beauty? I mean, I was so happy in the beginning to see the heroine as smart, capable, compassionate, everything a girl should be, minus the looks (I didn’t imagine her ugly, only not extraordinarily beautiful as princesses in fairytales usually are). I mentally congratulated the author for that, for getting rid of cliches, for showing readers that physical beauty is not the end all and be all… and then there’s an end scene where Beauty says the now former Beast that she cannot marry him, as he is too good for her, because she’s not beautiful. “Oh but you are”, sayeth he, and shows her that, she is now, indeed, truly beautiful (so yes, now they can get married). So much with cherishing courage and inner strength and anything else :(

Recommend it to? Anyone, I absolutely loved it. If you happen to like retold fairytales, or the tale of the Beauty and the Beast in particular, so much the better :)

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Summary: Peter, an orphan boy, goes to a fortune-teller to find an answer to his burning question: does his sister live, and if so, where to find her? He is told to “follow the elephant” — but there is no elephant around!

Somewhere else, in the same city, a magician “struck suddenly, and quite forcibly, with the notion that he had wasted his life” tries to perform something spectacular, muttering the words of a spell from long ago — and an elephant comes crashing through the roof :)

The book feels… magic. Just like that. Perhaps because it is, as the author puts it, a story where the impossible suddenly becomes possible. It is a story of love, a story about an elephant, dark at times, but most of all a story of hope. Peter never ceases to hope his sister is alive. The elephant holds on to the hope that she will see her home again. Iddo the blind dog hopes “to deliver, just once more, a message of great importance“. Even the magician keeps hoping for someone to share things with. I think the message of the book is just that: there is hope out there, there can always be a better tomorrow if one does not give up.

The book is filled with interesting characters, that come to life under the eyes of the reader. Such as Bartok Whynn, an artist who used to work at “coaxing gargoyles from stone” on top of a cathedral. He had an accident and ever since that he cannot get over the fact that life is funny, so he laughs all the while, so much so that he had to give up his job. Or a manservant, named Hans Ickman, who suddenly remembered a little white dog he had as a child, and is overwhelmed with how “Life was so short; so many beautiful things slipped away.“. Leo Matienne, the policeman with the heart of a poet, who liked to consider questions like “What if?”, “Why not?” and “Could it be?”, because “We must ask ourselves these questions as often as we dare. How will the world change if we do not question it?“. The elephant herself, trapped in a world she did not belong, without any idea of how she got there or why. Here’s a quote about her:

Deep within herself, the elephant said this name, her name, over and over again.
She was working to remind herself of who she was. She was working to remember that, somewhere, in another place entirely, she was known and loved.

This is another thing I have liked about the book: the author gives the animals personalities — such as the elephant who wanted to go home or the dog who wanted to be useful — without exaggerating in any way. I think it is a very important thing to teach children about, the fact that animals have feelings too. Sure, they may not be as noble as those in the book, they may not be as nicely worded (or not worded at all), but they are feelings nonetheless and should be taken into consideration as such.

Something that had made me happy:

“The bakers of the city concocted a flat, oversize pastry and filled it with cream and sprinkled it with cinnamon and sugar and called the confection an elephant ear, and the people could not get enough of it.”

I very much love this elephant ear confection (although it’s kinda hard to come by it where I live), and I was happy to see such a creative explanation for it. I think that I shall associate this book with the said sugary thing forever after :)

Another quote that I liked:

“It is the one you are calling Adele,” said the elephant in a slightly louder voice. “I am coming for to keep her and for taking her to where she is, after all, belonged.”
“I am truly sorry,” said Sister Marie, and her face did look sad. “I cannot understand a word you are saying. Perhaps it is because you are an elephant? Could that be it? Could that be the cause of the hindrance in our communications? Understand, I have nothing against elephants. You, yourself, are an exceptionally elegant elephant and obviously well mannered; there is no doubt. But the fact remains that I can make no sense of your words, and so I must bid you good night.”

I very much loved the peculiar wording of the elephant, and the politeness of Sister Marie :)

One last quote, from the book jacket this time — the author speaking about the book:

“I wanted, I needed, I longed to tell a story of love and magic. Peter, Adele, the magician, the elephant — all the characters in this book are the result of that longing. I hope that you, the reader, find some love and magic here.”

Thoughts on the ending: Happy, as befitting a children’s book (I don’t think this is a spoiler as no one expects a children’s book to end in blood and tears, right?). show spoiler

What I liked most: The writing. The writing was breathtakingly beautiful at times. I was expecting to like Kate DiCamillo a lot (I am a fan of Despereaux the movie), but I was unprepared for how much I have actually liked it. Yoko Tanaka’s pictures were perfect for this book too :)

What I liked least: I am too much in love with the book to find it a fault :)

Recommend it to? Anyone, without reserve. It is so beautiful it made my breath catch at times. It is also a short and fast read. I have found it incredible how such a small book can be so very powerful. And oh, how I loved it :)

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Summary: A retelling of the story of The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen, told mostly from the point of view of the boy who took one of her shoes.

Understandably enough I was fond of the way Frederik related to his secret: he had a small cardboard city hidden in the attic, with two residents made out of threadless wooden spools, with their heads being acorns. Frederik thinks they may feel lonely, and goes on to search for a way to get the pair a boat to go sailing, “to hunt for more family”. I found that to be a cute idea, and also the very reason why the path of Frederik and the little girl with the matches will intersect, albeit for a very short while.

This is another one of those stories where everyone is good and the atmosphere is relaxed. The queen was my favorite from this point of view, as she was quite a clumsy creature, always stepping on the hems of her dresses; a detail that could have made her ridiculous to the reader, but as she also treated everyone quite nicely, I ended up being amused by her in a good way.

A part of the product description of the book on Amazon.com (something I didn’t think about myself but is obvious once it’s been pointed out):

When it was first translated from Danish and published in England in the mid-nineteenth century, audiences likely interpreted the Little Match Girl′s dying visions of lights and a grandmother in heaven as metaphors of religious salvation. Maguire′s new piece, entitled “Matchless,” reilluminates Andersen′s classic, using his storytelling magic to rekindle Andersen′s original intentions, and to suggest transcendence, the permanence of spirit, and the continuity that links the living and the dead.

Another thing I have loved from the very first is the title. Which I find beautiful :)
I have no idea whether I am right or not, but I took it to be a play on words, as matchless means both with no matches (just like the little girl was after all her matches have burned) and without a match, alone, as two of the characters in the book happen to be. Also, at one point the girl’s mother’s eyes were mentioned to be matchless (as in unique), and I enjoyed having yet another meaning to play with. Isn’t it great that one single word title can be interpreted in so many ways? :)

Thoughts on the ending: It’s quite cute, made even more so by the pictures. How else :)

What I liked most: The fact that the author has managed to take such a gloomy story and turn it into a happy one without actually changing anything of importance…

What I liked least: …however, I was nevertheless a bit disappointed by the fact that the original story wasn’t changed; for some reason I was expecting otherwise. Didn’t bother me that much though as the whole was happy enough overall.

Recommend it to? Everyone. It a very short read (272 lines, according to one reviewer), and the pics (drawn by the author himself) are really nice :)

Written by the same author:
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
Wicked

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* The “mostly” is there because of the fact that I myself didn’t know all of them, though I imagine they are all well known since someone has bothered to write about them :)

Paid Piper

Cleci is fourteen, the daughter of a washerwoman, living in the village of Lime Tree. A wealthy village overall, and they all believe this is due to the god they worship, Raur, the rat god. As a festival in Raur’s honor is about to begin, a strange person, a piper with ancient-looking eyes but a young face and a younger smile, came along playing his pipe. Listening to his music everyone agreed he should be the one to lead the ceremony — and nothing was ever the same since.

According to the wiki, this is a retelling of The Pied Piper of Hamelin. Unfortunately, this is one of the tales I have never heard of before, so I have to idea how it matches to the original. All I can say is that I was “wow”-ed. This is my first Tanith Lee book and, as such, I loved discovering her writing style: seemingly simple and yet filled with beautiful similes and metaphors. Were I to quote the parts I liked I would probably quote half the story.

But most of all I fell in love with the very idea. The people, so petty and so blind to anything greater than their own ambitions. Too afraid to see the fact that there’s something greater out there, instead clinging to their traditions and their marble god. The piper, trying to make them see how things should really be, how beautiful life can be if one lets oneself enjoy it. A god himself, reminding me of Gaiman’s American Gods (“I was born on the day the first men thought of me. I shall die on the last day, when the last man forgets.“). A god of love, trying to get people to believe in him, for their own sake (thus to obtain a life free of petty ambition, a life full of enjoying beauty) as well as his (so he can live on). A god of love, yet slowly getting tainted by his prolonged contact with mankind.

I should probably stop now since I seem to have written quite a lot for a single story, and there’s eight more to come. Just one more mention: having read about the actual Pied Piper legend, I find quite interesting the way the author has chosen to adapt it. show spoiler

Red as Blood

A new take on the story of Snow White: Bianca is only thirteen when her step mother, the Witch Queen, arranges to have her killed. That’s because Bianca is in truth a vampire and her people aren’t safe with her around. Forced to leave home, she finds shelter in a cave, together with seven dwarf trees she brought to life. Until one day when an old crone comes and gifts her with an apple that secretly contained a piece of Eucharist — so Bianca, the vampire, choked with it and fainted.

This version, where Snow White’s (Bianca is the female form of white in Italian) mother is actually the good character, wanting to rid her people of the pest that Snow White, a vampire, is, was nothing new to me, as I have met it before in a short story by Neil Gaiman (Snow, Glass, Apples). I find it quite fascinating actually how two people thought of the same thing, to make Snow White a vampire (I’m guessing it’s because of her red lips), as I am very certain that they each wrote their version independently. The two versions differ though when it comes to the ending (and both differ from that of the fairytale) and, while Mr. Gaiman is by far the most realistic one, I think I like Mrs. Lee’s better: show spoiler

Thorns

“There is a thing there I would rather were left alone,” said a strange lady, dressed in black, to the travelling prince. She promised him gold, and glory, so as he will not pass by her, but his curiosity was stronger so he moved on, searching for the thing. He arrived in a strange village, where people has fur clothes and tools made out of stone. No sharp thing was in sight and, when asked why, the people sent him to the Oldest Man. The prince went on, to look for him, and found him at the base of a hill where thorns grew. Not ordinary thorns, but “A vast, rearing stronghold of thorns, taller than tall trees, black as night, thick stems interwoven and sharp with blades. A tangle of daggers dripping the diamond rain.“.

The original story is, of course, The Sleeping Beauty. Predictable enough, with a different ending. Unfortunately for me, an ending that I didn’t very much get. I did feel though its sadness and the loss those people suffered, a hundred years having fled by without their knowledge. I wonder at the lack of hope the ending seemed to have, and I keep shaking it off thinking it’s probably just me. I would definitely like to know what the author actually planned the ending to mean, as all my theories seem lacking :(

When The Clock Strikes

The Duke ruling the city has obtain his position treacherously, by killing everyone who stood between him and his purpose. Only one person has remained alive in the whole rival family, a woman. A bitter woman that has sworn revenge. To obtain it she has made a pact with the devil, and has taught witchery to her daughter too. The woman died, and her husband remarried a widow with two daughters of her own. And yet her daughter never gave up her plans for revenge, spending all her time covered in ashes, in order to be ignored, in order to be considered harmless.

Obviously a retelling of Cinderella. Like in Snow White’s case the tables are turned, and nothing is like in the original story. This Cinderella (who actually calls herself Ashella) spends her days in ashes because she has chosen so. There is no fairy godmother, there’s only the powers of evil. The step mother is the very epitome of generosity and the sisters are nice people too. Not to mention that what happens when the clock strikes twelve is also different than what originally happened. A truly twisted fairytale. And, as I am getting used by now (after all this is the fourth story already), it is perhaps worth mentioning that the implications of the ending are a bit more than the reader would expect. :)

The Golden Rope

The story opens with a witch paying a man well in exchange for his then not-yet-born daughter. The girl, named Jaspre, was then raised in solitude, not getting to see any other human being but the witch. When Jaspre is thirteen, she is introduced to a handsome statue, and told that it represents a god, an angel, a prince of darkness, and serving him was the very reason why she was brought into the world. So Jaspre serves him for a while, as best she can. She even falls in love with him, so deeply that when asked if she would give away her blood for him she welcomes the idea.

Inspired from Rapunzel. I loved the fact that, like in Paid Piper, a lot of literal things in the original fairytale were turned to their allegorical versions: the tower doesn’t actually exist, nor is Jaspre’s hair as long as to touch the ground. Not even the prince is an actual prince. The ending is lovely though, although predictable. Oh, and I had fun noticing the name the author has chosen for this particular heroine: Jaspre, because the witch gave Jaspre’s mother jaspre while pregnant, to strengthen her; just as Rapunzel in the original story was named Rapunzel because the witch gave the mother, while pregnant, a rapunzel plant.

The Princess And Her Future

The princess in the title is Jarasmi, a young girl who one day, at the market, was given a gift by a strange man with yellow eyes. He gave her a golden glass ball and told her that, when broken, the ball will show her future. Curious, like every other girl her age, about what the future holds her, Jarasmi hid in a corner of the garden, near a hidden temple, although her nurse had warned her not to ever go there.
Once she was certain she was all alone, she threw the ball to the ground. A small gesture, but with important consequences for Jarami, as because of it she got to meet the man she will soon marry.

Wikipedia says that this is a retelling of The Frog Princess, but I fail to see any connection between the two. Perhaps this is because this story is quite short and very few things happen throughout it, perhaps the wiki got it wrong, or perhaps I wasn’t paying enough attention. At least both versions have a ruler of land wanting to find a suitable spouse for his child. This is the only common ground I could find.

Wolfland

Lisel had to visit her grandmother, so, although she didn’t look forward to it, she donned her new scarlet cloak, climbed her sled, and away she went. Reaching her grandmother’s castle has proven to be a fearsome adventure for her, as Lisel and her escort had to go through a forest inhabited by wolves, but all is well when it ends well, so Lisel was happy to found herself in the old lady’s salon, surrounded by all the riches that she knew one day will belong to her. And yet, at night, a wolf came again, frightening Lisel so much that she wanted to leave for her home at once. But, of course, in the morning everything seemed alright again… or not?

An Little Red Riding Hood adaptation if there ever was one. Although somewhat predictable, I very much loved the author’s idea (especially when considered side by side with the original tale). Once again the literal elements gave way to metaphors, such as, the most obvious case, the part where the wolf eats first the grandmother and then Little Red Riding Hood herself. This moment appears in the short story too, although in quite a different way, and I liked that. We even get to know a few tidbits of granny’s youth (although they are bound to be different from what may have been in the youth of the granny in the fairytale, since that was was a poor woman and the one in the story is noble and rich), and I also liked that, because it added depth. What’s the deal with Beautiful though?

Black As Ink

Viktor is twenty and very bored, as his mother insists on him spending his summer at the family estate. One night he sees a beautiful girl swimming naked into the pond, and his curiosity is aroused. He discovers she lives on a small island together with her uncle, and he hopelessly falls in love with her after talking to her just once.

A story of irresistible attraction. I really felt sorry for Viktor while reading, as it was clear to me that, where the girl was involved, his fate was completely out of his hands. A sad story with (surprisingly enough) no supernatural elements involved. The wiki says it’s a retelling of The White Duck but once again there is very little that I find the two to have in common.

Beauty

Levin’s youngest daughter asked him for a rose as a present. Ironically enough, Levin received, on his journey, a rose, a special kind of rose: a rose that in their day and age meant that one of his children had to go and live with the aliens that have conquered the Earth. Levin chose to give away his youngest, Estár, the only natural born child.

I was surprised to discover this to be set in the future (unlike the others, set into a more or less distant past). I was also quite amused at the whole “bring me a rose”/”you’ll have to go away ’cause of the rose” part, because it strongly reminded me of the beginning of The Beauty and the Beast (not to mention the fact that the aliens were thought of as very ugly *hint hint*). I found it to be the most intense story of them all, and I read through it breathlessly, hurrying to find out whether the ending matches the fairytale as well as the beginning did.

What I liked most: Predictably somehow, my favorite stories were those where I could readily identify the elements from the original fairy tales. Sure, most of the time when they were present they were twisted somehow — exactly what I expected and the very thing I love. It’s like in these cases I get to appreciate most the magic of what the author has done, because I know the “rough material” she got to work with, and, seeing what she managed to make of it, am all the more impressed. If that makes any sense.

In terms of a favorite story I’d definitely chose “Paid Piper” (probably the fact that it was the first one very much counted because it was the story that acquainted me with the author’s writing style — but I very much like some of the ideas too). Also, “Beauty”, because of the intensity, because it was well told.

What I liked least: I was a bit disappointed whenever I couldn’t trace any of the original fairytale elements in the story because it made the story less of a retelling. Sure, the stories are good enough to stand on their own, without needing the backing of old fairytales — and yet, since I expected to read a book of retellings I was a bit disappointed when that didn’t seem to be the case (actually, these may turn out to be my favorite stories of them all, because who’s to say the similitudes aren’t there, but very subtle and hidden? And, as I love subtlety and a good challenge… ).

Recommend it to? Everyone. I simply loved the writing style, seemingly simple and yet beautifully worded (reminding me somehow of Cornelia Funke).


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When Tristram Thorn’s lady love promised him his heart’s desire (be it a kiss from her or even her hand in marriage) if he will prove himself worthy by bringing her the very star they both saw falling on one particular evening, he never hesitates although this means his having to wander through Faerie in search of it. Nor does he wonder how come the guards of the wall let him pass through. Nor does he stop until he finds the star — although in a slightly different form that he expected: that of a young blonde girl whose skin glows at night.

As far as the characters went I was happy to notice that most of them were nice, even good people/beings most of the time. While the story does have its share of people the reader doesn’t want to succeed, in the end even the oldest Lilim, the star’s greatest enemy, nobly acknowledges her loss when it becomes obvious she will not win. A refreshing thing even if a bit improbable outside a fairy tale (but, since this is a fairy tale… :P )

I really liked the world the author has created: a world with girl-stars, unicorns, ships floating on air and travels made faster by magic candles. Also, I was happy to notice some of the details — such as the fact that the seven brothers’ names were the Latin words for First, Second, Third and so on. Or this:

Dunstan paused in front of a stall covered with tiny crystal ornaments; he examined the miniature animals, pondering getting one for Daisy Hempstock. He picked up a crystal cat, no bigger than his thumb. Sagely it blinked at him, and he dropped it, shocked; it righted itself in midair and, like a real cat, fell on its four paws.Then it stalked over to the corner of the stall and began to wash itself.

What I liked most: The writing style. Very accessible (just like a fairy tale is supposed to be) and yet with beautiful imagery at times. To give but an example, I very much liked the way the ghosts of the killed brothers talked, but their voices were heard as nature sounds by the living (the rustle of leaves, the cry of a distant bird, etc).

I have also very much liked this part, near the end (possible spoiler):

“Well,” he said. “Mother certainly seems to be doing an excellent job of reigning.”

“Just as you,” she told him, tartly, “would do every bit as well, if you took the throne.”

“Perhaps,” he admitted. “And it certainly seems like it would be a nice place to end up, eventually. But there are so many places we have not yet seen. So many people still to meet. Not to mention all the wrongs to right, villains to vanquish, sights to see, all that. You know.”

And then they go and write the Mother a note that I think to be the best note ever (in the circumstances, of course): Have been unavoidably detained by the world. Expect us when you see us.

What I liked least: Nothing, I loved it on the whole.

Recommend it to? Anyone who enjoys fairy tales :)

Written by the same author:
American Gods
Coraline
Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett)
The Graveyard Book
Neverwhere
Snow, Glass, Apples

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It is obvious that the author enjoyed playing with the original story, twisting it until it’s almost unrecognizable at times. The step mother is no longer wicked, but only wants the best for her kingdom and is sincerely convinced that getting rid of her stepdaughter is the right thing to do. The seven dwarfs are now a number of distorted, twisted midgets. The good prince is a necrophiliac. And so on, taking the story on a whole new level.

Perhaps it is worth noting the way this short story came to be: according to himself, Neil Gaiman, the author, is fascinated by myths and old stories, considering them the compost that helps new stories develop and grow. When attending a symposium on this subject (myths and fairy tales) he was surprised to discover that the audience did not relate to them, did not think of them as “having power”, as being able to still evolve. So Mr. Gaiman set to prove them wrong — and the very next day he presented them with this particular story, born out of the Tale of Snow White and Seven Dwarfs, and yet with a completely new approach.

In the author’s own words:

It was a retelling of the story of Snow White, from the point of view of the wicked queen. It asked questions like, “What kind of a prince comes across the dead body of a girl in a glass coffin and announces that he is in love and will be taking the body back to his castle?” and for that matter, “What kind of a girl has skin as white as snow, hair as black as coal, lips as red as blood, and can lie, as if dead, for a long time?” We realize, listening to the story, that the wicked queen was not wicked: she simply did not go far enough; and we also realize, as the queen is imprisoned inside a kiln, about to be roasted for the midwinter feast, that stories are told by survivors.

Reading this, I was very impressed by the way the author has managed to create such a frightful story, with such an original perspective, at such short notice. Not that I have ever doubted his talent, of course — but these days I am more impressed by him as ever before. :)

What I liked most: The very idea that the story that we all know might have in reality unfolded differently. After all, the mirror has two faces, doesn’t it? :) I am quite fond of the title too — seemingly random words but also a very strong connection to the initial tale.

What I liked least: Not something that bothered me that much but I was surprised to see a few explicit sexual references. I realize that the reason they took me by surprise is that I was somehow expecting to see a children’s fairy tale (despite knowing the opposite). In any way, they are not over exaggerated and taken in the context, they are just as much a part of the story like all the rest.

Recommend it to? Anyone interested in twisted fairy tales and/or seeing events from more than one perspective :)

Written by the same author:
American Gods
Coraline
Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett)
Neverwhere
Stardust
The Graveyard Book

The links to amazon.com and bookdepository.co.uk are affiliate links. If you click one of them and buy something, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price. This being said, rest assured that the few cents I might thus make will never influence what I say or do not say about any book reviewed on the site.

Incoming search terms for the article:

What I liked most about the characters in the book was their multidimensionality: they felt real, they had (at times contradictory) feelings and they didn’t fit any typology of good and bad. My favorite character was (of course) Iris: she’s a good girl albeit, loving her two sisters and helping them as best as she can, although she cannot help feeling jealousy when the boys she likes seem smitten with Clara’s beauty. Iris has an inferiority complex when it comes to looks, because she is quite plain looking, her mother not hesitating to call her ugly now and then — and yet, perhaps paradoxically, perhaps because of an unconscious inner yearn for what she doesn’t possess, Iris is the one who has “an eye” for beauty, seeing it wherever she looks, in the way the colors are arranged or in the way light falls on surfaces. Clara on the other hand is almost the very opposite: while not a bad child she is strange (“willful and timid at once“), sucking her thumb long after infancy and afraid of the world outside her home (perhaps with a good reason to, as she was kidnapped when she was three). Unfortunately she lacks the solicitude Iris has, placing her own interests above all else.

Even Maragarethe, “the wicked stepmother”, is not as wicked as one would have expected. While not necessarily a good person, she loves her daughters and would make anything to help them have good lives. From that point of view I couldn’t help relating her to Scarlett O’Hara: the way both Scarlett and Margarethe have had to starve and see their loved ones starve with them; the way both of them have then tried to go any lengths in order for that not to happen again, including marrying men they did not love; and also in the way both Scarlett and Margarethe shared a complete lack of taste when they at last married into money. These similitudes made me perhaps like Margarethe a bit more than I would have liked her otherwise, because they helped me detach her image from the expected “wicked stepmother” one and understand her situation better.

I was very pleasantly surprised on reading this book. When I read Wicked I almost hated it for all the cruelty it contained (towards the Animals, towards Elphaba herself) and, although I liked the writing, I didn’t expect to pick up another book of this author anytime soon. And yet the premise of this book sounded interesting and, hoping no cruelty will be involved, I picked it up. And I am very glad I did, because, while it also provokes strong feelings (luckily nothing as painfully unjust as some situations in Wicked were), it adds a lot of depth to a story we all have heard times and times before.

It is perhaps amusing how the author, while keeping the main elements, the ones that make the story easily identifiable (a mother with two daughters marries a man with one daughter of his own; the man’s daughter is nicknamed Cinderella; there is a ball and a prince and a beautiful unknown girl who steals the prince’s heart; a slipper that would later on help the prince identify the girl), changed almost anything else. The three girls love each other like sisters; no one forced Cinderella to live in the kitchen, it was her very own choice; for that matter, Clara/Cinderella does not have a heart of gold nor are her stepsisters evil; the pumpkin carriage is merely an invention; and so on.

My favorite lines were the very last lines in the book (which I can safely put here as they don’t actually have any connection whatsoever to the rest):

But to be most effective, the faces of the children would need to be painted in a blur, the way all children’s faces truly are. For they blur as they run; they blur as they grow and change so fast; and they blur to keep us from loving them too deeply, for their protection, and also for ours.

What I liked most: The very idea of taking a well known story such as Cinderella and twist it in order to enable us to see the points of view of the other people involved in the story. Oh, and also the fact that the story was placed in a real world setting (Holland no less :) ).

What I liked least: show spoiler

Recommend it to? Everyone, hee hee. I really liked it you know :)

Written by the same author:
Matchless
Wicked

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This life won’t last for long though. The Adderhead himself wants the Bluejay caught, thinking him the only one who can fix the White book where his (Adderhead’s) immortality lies. He threatens to take away all the children in Ombra if the Bluejay doesn’t give himself up. And Mo does. With a hidden agenda of his own: to get his hands on the Book and write the three words in it, thus killing the Adderhead and ending his regime of fear once and for all.

A lot of characters change in this book and I am not sure how (or whether) I like that. Mo used to be a peaceful man, didn’t even like the feeling of having a sword in his hand, with an easy readable face — he turns in a very different person: a sword killer (he does kill lots of people, mostly in self defense), his hand flies to the hilt of his sword/knife when insulted, has a secret life he tries to hide from his family and so on. He is still a good person but a bit too violent to be as believable as he was. Dustfinger too changed after what he’s been through: he is now more courageous, a true hero (with superhuman capabilities too). And yet, the very reason I liked him in the first place was his vulnerability, the fact that he wasn’t perfect, the fact that he was afraid, the fact that he made mistakes, the fact that despite all these he still tried to be the best person he could. Now he has interesting and useful capabilities, I’ll grant him that, and I still like him out of habit — but I did like him a lot more in the previous books. Farid and Meggie also change but in more subtle ways (probably explainable by their growing up and having different priorities and expectations out of life). I was happy to see Resa develop in a more powerful character I could root for, and I also liked the Black Prince even more than before. A character I didn’t like was Elinor, it seems like she’s just bossing people around (very annoying when she does it to Fenoglio, who’s supposed to write words to save them all, and she keeps talking and talking instead of letting him think!).

After being sort of disenchanted with the previous book (and reading this only out of a vague curiosity to see what happens + because I like the way Ms. Funke writes), I was surprised to find this book a lot more fast paced than I was expecting it to be (with a few exceptions but nothing is perfect), and also a lot more intense. There are a lot of dark feelings experienced by the characters, a lot of anger, a lot of grief, gripping the reader and not letting go for chapters. Perhaps that is the result of the author having to overcome struggles of her own while writing the book — her husband Rolf dying of cancer in 2006 (speaking of which I have to say I was very moved by the fact that the book is dedicated “To Rolf, always–it was the best of things to be married to Dustfinger.“).

As a small bit of trivia, I was surprised to find out that the original title of Inkspell (the second book) is actually Inkblood (in German of course). I have no idea why the publishers chose to change it, as the new name sort of detracts from the dark atmosphere the novels have and that the titles would have had too if left alone. For example, just look at the three words meant to kill the Adderhead: heart, spell, death (yes, they are taking from the titles of the three books — or viceversa). Doesn’t spell look a bit out of place in there? Especially when you compare it with the actual words the author intended: heart, blood, death <-- these three look a lot more "deadly" to me than the ones we (English readers) got.

What I liked most: The part where Fenoglio, upset and amazed at the fact that his world has once again gotten out of hand, muses:

Was there another man writing this story?

Was there a scribbler sitting somewhere in the hills that he himself had described so vividly, another writer who had sent him falling into this giant’s hand? Or was the wretch sitting in the other world, the real world that hadn’t been written, the way he used to sit there himself, putting Inkheart down on paper?

Oh, come on! What would that make you, Fenoglio?

Of course he decided that no, he wouldn’t allow anyone to pull his strings and he is definitely not a puppet in someone else’s hands, but we (Inkdeath readers) know a lot better than that, don’t we? :P

Also, I am aware of the fact that I keep mentioning how much I love Ms. Funke’s writing style. Among other things here’s my favorite metaphor in the whole book (and trilogy actually):

“Do you remember the sound my heart made when it broke?”

It doesn’t have as much strength taken out of context but I find it powerful imagery nevertheless.

What I liked least: As it’s probably expected by now, here comes another rant on the topic of fantasy rules. There are practically no limitations to what the written (and then read) words can do (they do say at one time that they couldn’t do anything against the grain of the story, the villain couldn’t turn good all of the sudden and so on, but I do find it quite vague). My pet peeve with this book was the part where now words can influence people themselves. In Inkspell there is a scene where Fenoglio puts words in the Adderhead’s mouth. Orpheus on the other hand can create things and beings out of nothing but he never tries to influence actual actions — for no reason at all as, since Fenoglio could do it, so could he. It is very clear that there would have been no story if Orpheus had unleashed his full strength. Think about it, the book that granted immortality was created by Mo because Fenoglio wrote so; if Orpheus wanted such a book for himself why didn’t he simply write one, or write someone into making him one?

It was very frustrating to watch said Orpheus racking his brains to find solutions to things he could easily have solved by writing (and then our heros wouldn’t have had a single chance of escaping but at least the book would have been consistent all around). It would have been a lot better (and I have the feeling that I said it before) if the author had established a set of rules in the beginning and stuck to them throughout, instead of randomly giving capabilities and then letting the characters simply forget them when they didn’t serve the purpose of the book.

Recommend it to? Anyone who has read the previous two books :) I am not sure how much anyone would understand of it without knowing the background story.

This book is a sequel to:
Inkheart
Inkspell


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But the Inkworld is out of the control of its creator. Cosimo the Fair, the good prince, is dead. The Laughing Prince, his father, is now sighing and consumed with grief. The Silver Prince, the villain in this story, is closer and closer to taking over the world. Fenoglio will try, of course, to make the good prevail in his story, writing new words and using Meggie’s voice to make them true — but nothing is as simple as the consequences of each written page are not the one their author expected.

Opening the book, I was very glad to find there all the characters I’d grown to love in Inkheart. Mo and Meggie, with their strong attachment binding them as ever. Elinor, who plays only a minor part in this book but I was glad to see her nevertheless. Farid, the courageous, although yet quite young. Dustfinger, the fire-eater, thinking himself a coward but never being one when the times are hard. There’s also Resa, Meggie’s mother — but for some reason I am not as fond of her as of the others; perhaps because I just don’t like her name, perhaps because she just isn’t outstanding enough. We get to know enchanting new characters too: the Black prince and his bear, Her Ugliness — the princess Violante, widow of Cosimo the Fair, new and colorful villains and more.

I was also very happy to get answers to lots of things I’ve been wondering about while reading Inkheart. We find out for example a lot more details about how Dustfingers got his scars. Or why he was so anxious to get into his own world and so sad while in ours. We are also told what Fenoglio was up to after ending up in the Inkworld and we are described the world inside the book, the Inkworld in lots more detail. I even get (sort of) an answer to my question about how come Meggie could also send characters in a book: by writing new words saying precisely that (although later on even this rule is broken when Resa gets to travel back to the Inkworld by hanging on to Mo, although she wasn’t specifically mentioned in the words used to get Mo there, but oh well).

And yet at first I found it harder to get into this book than I did the first one, perhaps because I couldn’t relate with the characters as well. In Inkheart I totally understood and supported the characters choices, whereas in this book I couldn’t, for example, get the attraction Inkworld held for Meggie (and later on for others). To me that world sounds sort of interesting but not utterly fascinating. Also, the story is perhaps a bit long winded (although I must say that I love some parts of Ms Funke’s writing, especially her metaphors): don’t get me wrong, I loved (most of the) the book and (most of the) characters — and yet it seemed to me it could have definitely been a wee bit shorter.

Speaking of Ms Funke’s writing, here’s a quote I liked:

“Isn’t it odd how much fatter a book gets when you’ve read it several times?” Mo had said when, on Meggie’s last birthday, they were looking at all her dear old books again. “As if something were left between the pages every time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells…and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there, too, a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like a pressed flower…both strange and familiar.”

What I liked most: I absolutely love the idea of a fantasy world getting out of the hand of its creator: new characters appearing, events happening that the author never dreamed of — a world with a will of its own (as Rosenkrantz put it, “Your story is growing — growing like a weed! And not a particularly pretty one, either, if you ask me.“).

Also, a small insignificant detail, but one I found amusing is the fact that Mo says about paperbacks that they are “books in beach clothes” :)

What I liked least: the “everything written that is read by a gifted reader comes true” part. The characters could do technically anything, anything at all using their capability to make their words come reality — is someone deathly sick? The writer can change that. Is someone on the verge of being killed? The writer can change that. And so on, minimizing the contribution of the rest of the characters to the story’s development. The reader, instead of being on the edge of his/her chair, wondering “what are they going to do to escape this time”, sits back thinking “oh, that writer will just write something to fix it”. It’s a pity the author didn’t stop at letting her characters get in and out of books, and let them also influence events instead. Actually, come to think about it there is also something I did like about this part: the written words sometimes get out of control, having consequences no one would have imagined. A cool thing — but on the whole the existence of a “deus ex machina” would have been better left off.

And, shall I dare say, I am not the least bit thrilled about what the author has done to Dustfinger, my favorite character of them all. It made me want to pick up the next book right away to make sure everything will be set right again. Which is probably precisely what the author wanted in the first place hee hee.

Recommend it to? This is supposed to be a children’s book. I am not sure though whether children will enjoy it because of its sheer length, which will probably bore (some of) them after a while. I would though recommend it to any fantasy lover, regardless of age — especially the ones enchanted by the idea of magic worlds hidden inside books, worlds filled with fairies, elves, thieves, and many more.

This book is a sequel to:
Inkheart

This book is followed by:
Inkdeath

The links to amazon.com and bookdepository.co.uk are affiliate links. If you click one of them and buy something, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price. This being said, rest assured that the few cents I might thus make will never influence what I say or do not say about any book reviewed on the site.