Curse of the Thirteeth Fey- Jane Yolen

4.5/5

Curse of the Thirteenth Fey: The True Tale of Sleeping Beauty was really good. I am not usually a HUGE Jane Yolen fan but this was an excellent novel. It was sleeping beauty from the “wicked” fairies point of view.



It really twisted the story of sleeping beauty, to the point where I am not sure this should have been actually called the true tale of sleeping beauty. I mean honestly that part of the tale was thrown in haphazardly and was prominent in maybe the last ten pages. I found it trivial to all the other wonderful great things this book had going for it.



1) Great writing

2) Great setting

3) Great and interesting characters

4) A huge loving magical quirky family

5) A new interesting take of elves and the fey

6) MAGIC! And you know the kind with explanations that actually make sense and has rules and all sorts of fun stuff to go along with it.

7) No love triangle

8) No insta-love


Gorse is the 13th daughter in a family of Shouting fey, which are winged large fairies with magic. Her father is an elf that likes books and she develops his love of learning. Gorse grows up getting sick a lot and magic makes her head hurt. When she is 13 she finds out that her family is tied to the land they live on under the rule of a once great human family who is now corrupted by power and greed. They are stuck living in the same place and not being able to leave because of an Oath her great great grandfather and his wife made many years passed. Because of this they have to do Biddings and other magic any time the royal family asks for it. If a fey breaks an Oath then they die, bursting into a thousand stars.



So…. The family gets Bid to come to a baby blessing, and here is where it ties in with the original tale of Sleeping Beauty. Gorse gets left behind and on her way to the blessing she falls into the trap of an Unseelie Fey prince who makes her swear an Oath to help him. The remainder of this book is about Gorse helping the mean Unseelie Prince and his cousin and rescuing them from their prison. well sort of…but that’s a HUGE spoiler alert. When she finally makes it to the blessing, accident prone Gorse curses the new baby instead of blessing her with long life. Gorse mom winds up being the only Shouting Fey to not have given a gift and changes it from death at 16 to the simple 100 year sleeping spell we have all come to know and love.

The book then jumps ahead to the baby’s 16th birthday and the sleeping spell. Gorse is now around 16 or 17 in Shouting Fey years and has fallen in love with a fey boy…Though honestly this isn’t that important, it’s mentioned simply in passing. Gorse finds out that after sleeping for one hundred years the king and his family will no longer be the rulers of the land which breaks her family’s Oath to them and will allow them to finally leave, if they want to. Happily Ever After.

I was very happy and content after reading this book. It was entertaining and I enjoyed myself. It felt a little bit more like middle grade fiction in some parts and Jane Yolen does have a tendency to ramble a bit on things that do not move the plot forward. However, as far as fairy tale retellings go this one was pretty awesome and certainly going in my to be kept pile.

Beautiful Redemption- Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

2.5/5

** spoiler alert **

Ughn… Oh Beautiful Redemption where or where did you go wrong? This was a decent series wrapped up in the crappy way.

We start with poor Ethan being dead, and I pretty much cried through the first few chapters because Ethan being able to be back with his mom was some powerful and really good writing. In fact the first part of Beautiful Redemption made me very happy. Ethan in limbo (which I won’t spoil the details but was an A-mazing take on the after life) hanging out with his mom and his Aunt Pru and all her husbands. Ethan figures out how to get back to Galtin and see Amma, Lena and all the people he left behind. He leaves them messages in the crossword puzzles which I found to be very clever.

Then Ethan figures out why he actually had to die and the plot line finally takes off. Ethan now needs the help of his living friends to destroy his page in the Caster Chronicles (which is going to be a BIG SCARY EPIC JOURNEYL) and then he will get to live again… Which did feel a little convenient, but oh well, I can get past that.

Ethan’s part held everything that I loved about this series from the first book. I enjoy Ethan’s tone and the prose used to write him first person. The way he views people and life in Gatlin or even in the afterlife is something I will always enjoy reading…. But that’s where it ends and suddenly I am thrown into….. *cue scary music* Lena Land

The second part of this book is first person Lena, basically full of her moping around missing Ethan and refusing to believe he is dead for good. Even worse, now she no longer writes her horrible emo poetry she just thinks it ALL THE DAMN TIME until I wanted to rip out my hair with just how awful it truly was. Finally the plot moves on and Lena, John Link, Liv and thank the dark goddess Ridley, have a plan to help Ethan come home to the land of the living.

So we spend another two hundreds pages kind of doing something while really doing nothing, all the while Ethan is stuck with some creepy Gate Keeper waiting for the Book of Moons to be delivered to him. There is a very sloppy scene where Macon, Link, John, Ridley and Lena dispatch of the big bad Abraham Ravenwood (in the lamest manner possible I mean c’mon this guy was supposed to be the villain here!) and a rather nasty Blood Incubus.read vampire wannabee

Finally we come back to Ethan who manages through many trials and tribulations to reach the Caster Chronicles and defeat nasty evil that no one before has been able to defeat all the while maintaining his pathetic mortal status. When he finally has the option of destroying his page, does he do anything to help anyone else? How about his poor zombie ancestor who got screwed loving a Caster girl back in the civil war? Or Lena’s poor cursed family, since this series never explains if the curse really did die when Lena claimed herself for dark and light…. I mean what if Ridley or Lena have a damn kid? Does he destroy his mom’s page so she can come back to life too? You know since she only died because of corruptness in the Caster Library Keeper’s Guild? No…Ethan only saves himself.

So after all the crap Ethan has gone through he winds up alive again, but wait that’s not all !! Amma has to die to pay the price for Ethan living… Um….wait…WHAT THE FUCK? Didn’t Ethan go through hell and back to save himself? Why does Amma have to still pay a price when Ethan did all the work? It makes no sense.

I digress….

Ethan can now touch Lena so they can be together read fuck and while Ethan’s mom and Amma are dead now they are all going to live happily ever after and everything is wrapped up all nice and neat with a bow and chocolate milk and one of the corniest “things have never been sweeter” Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory lines I have read in FOREVER.

Disappointed is the only word I have for this final installment of the Caster series. So three stars but only because I couldn’t give it 2.5… And then only because of the first part and my severe Ethan Love