"Rapunzel Untangled" by Cindy C. Bennett

I wanted to like this book, I really did.  This was a fairy tale that  I had yet to read in a modernized format.  Sadly, that didn't make it good.  In Rapunzel Untangled by Cindy C. Bennett, Rapunzel has never left her tower.  Her mother has kept her locked away due to SCIDS disease and Rapunzel can't risk her health.  But she longs for companionship which she finally finds when she makes her first facebook friend, Fane.  Of course he introduces Rapunzel to many of the world's wonders and she begins to risk everything for more life experiences.  She's careful, but what happens when she gets caught?

Only one word describe this book for me: convenient   Everything just falls perfectly into place every time   There is no real conflict until the end of he novel and even that felt forced and awkward.  I felt like I was reading waiting for the plot to get started but that didn't really happen.  There were elements of the book that were really sweet and I could certainly see girls swooning over Fane, but I wanted a little more from this book.  If you are looking for a relatively calm, modernized fairy tale, then you will likely enjoy this book.  However, if you are like me and getting a little tired of fairy tale re-tellings and not into books with weak plots, then maybe skip this book in favor of something else.

Happy Reading!
-Melly

"Fairest of All" (Whatever After #1) by Sarah Mlynowski

Following the trend of giving fairy tales and other classic stories and new modern twist is Sarah Mlynowski's Fairest of All (first in the Whatever After series).  This book is somewhat what one would expect.  After Abby and her brother Jonah get sucked into the weird mirror in the basement of their new house, they find themselves in a strange forest.  As they are trying to figure out where they are and how to get back home, they come across a cottage just in time to save the young woman inside from being poisened by a witch.  What they don't realize is that the young woman is Snow White and by saving her, they have changed Snow's fate to meet and marry the prince.  Now it is up to Abby and Jonah to get the story back on track- and get home before their parents wake up.

I'm sort of picky about these sort of books that retell a story.  The author has to do a really good job in reshaping a story that I have hear time and time again if they want to impress me.  I was pretty impressed by Mlynowski's interpretation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.   It was a very silly story in which Snow becomes shy at the idea of meeting the prince, the queen is obsessed with interior decorating (and being evil of course) and magic mirrors hiss and turn purple.  I giggled quite a bit while reading this book.  It is certainly a title I would recommend to young readers (particularly girls, probably about 8 or so).  It is different from the story most of us are used to, but still enjoyable.  I look forward to reading the next in the series, If the Shoe Fits. 






Happy Reading!
-Melly