Tuesday, October 08, 2013

Towering

Towering  by Alex Flinn

I read and even kind of enjoyed Beastly and I'm kind of into the idea of the retelling of fairy tales.  So, I gave another Alex Flinn book a shot.  This is a retelling of Rapunzel, but I definitely preferred Tangled to this.  

Wyatt's had a rough time and his mother sends him to live with the mother of an old friend in the Adirondacks.  He's staying in a rather remote location, far from home and with a woman he's never known.  He does know that she's had a rough time, too.  Her daughter disappeared and she's never gotten over it.

In a much more remote location, Rachel spends her days and nights locked up by the woman she calls Mama.  Mama says that she's there for her protection, but being a teenage girl, seeing no one, going nowhere is kind of a drag.  She's been told there's someone out there looking for her with the intent to harm her and she must stay quiet and out of sight.

Of course, their paths cross, but  there really is a whole creepy other thing going on and that really threw me for a loop.  Rachel is really in danger, the missing girl is related to the situation with Rachel and there's some really weird crap going on up in those mountains.  

I can see the problem with updating Rapunzel, but the way Flinn took the story, when she reached the climax and turned it into a very different kind of book didn't really work for me.  For the record, I did like the characters and the way Rachel and the missing girl and Mama and Wyatt all are connected.  I guess it's on to the next fairy tale and see how that goes for me.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I love fairy tale retellings, but I wasn't really sure about this one. I think part of my the reason I am hesitant to read this is probably because I tend to prefer female protagonists though.

Too bad this wasn't your cup of tea


looking forward to more fairytale retellings(:

The HoneyNerds said...

I like fairy tale retellings and enjoyed Beastly too, but haven't gotten around to this one. Sad that it didn't wow you, I might wait on this one now.