Title -
Enchanted
Author -
Alethea Kontis
Series - Woodcutter Sisters
Release Date - May 8th, 2012
Publisher -
Harcourt Children's Books
Format Acquired - e-Book
It isn't easy being the rather overlooked and unhappy youngest sibling to sisters named for the other six days of the week. Sunday's only comfort is writing stories, although what she writes has a terrible tendency to come true.
When Sunday meets an enchanted frog who asks about her stories, the two become friends. Soon that friendship deepens into something magical. One night Sunday kisses her frog goodbye and leaves, not realizing that her love has transformed back into Rumbold, the crown prince of Arilland - and a man Sunday's family despises.
The prince returns to his castle, intent on making Sunday fall in love with him as the man he is, not the frog he was. But Sunday is not so easy to woo. How can she feel such a strange, strong attraction for this prince she barely knows? And what twisted secrets lie hidden in his past - and hers?
*Was supposed to post this yesterday but Downton Abbey.*
A string of commonly known fairy tales and nursery rhymes have been weaved together to create this incredibly adorable and mischievous story about a family, the Woodcutters, with too much fey magic in their blood. And as everyone in Arilland knows, with fey magic comes lots of unpredictable things; trouble is never too far away, and you never know what's waiting for you around the corner.
As I reading, I couldn't help but think that the storyline was borderline genius! From page one, I got sucked in and wouldn't let myself stop (was also really annoyed whenever I got interrupted during my reading). As I somewhat stated before, a lot of fairy tales and nursery rhymes were put together to create this first tale of the Woodcutter Sisters; so you'd think that with so many different stories, there'd be lots and lots of confusion, right? Wrong. This was so perfectly orchestrated that there was absolutely no mistakes. By mistakes I mean that the author didn't mix names up and whatnot.
Featured was the tale of
Jack and the Beanstalk, the
Princess and the Frog, and
Monday's Child amongst others that I don't really know but that's OK because they made this book awesome regardless! A very embarrassing thing that happened, though, was the fact that I kept forgetting the name's of the Woodcutter sisters, so if a sentence said something like, "Friday told Sunday..." my reaction was just like, "What? Why is there a joke in the middle of th-- oh, yeah!" and this happened way too many times. ¬.¬'
One thing I really liked about the way this was written is how from chapter to chapter, time sort of jumps so there are events that you (the reader) miss, but you find out about them soon enough that it's not bothersome. One thing that I didn't like was the prince's name... WHAT KIND OF NAME IS RUMBOLD? AND HOW DID PRINCESS ALETHEA COME UP WITH IT? MOST IMPORTANTLY, WHY? I don't know why his name bothers me so much. It just does.
Speaking of names and characters, there are many of them in this book. The Woodcutters have seven daughters, Monday-Sunday xD, two sons named Jack Jr. and Peter, an adopted son who's a relative anyway but they didn't know, papa Woodcutter Jack Sr., mama Woodcutter whose name is Seven (long story... read it to find out), a wicked aunt and her twin opposite. Then there's the king whose name everyone in Arilland has forgotten, the prince, the prince's brother, and a bunch of very helpful people who are also important. The point is, there's a lot of them!
This was a very fun introduction to the Woodcutter family. It made me smile and feel small again. I do wish that we were told what happened to Jack Jr. at long last, and I wish we got to know Mrs. Woodcutter, Seven, a little more.
