The amazon summary because I have no idea what to say about this book. "Twelve princesses suffer from a puzzling (if silly) curse, and anyone who ends it will win a reward. Reveka, a sharp-witted and irreverent apprentice herbalist, wants that reward. But her investigations lead to deeper mysteries and a daunting choice—will she break the curse at the peril of her own soul?" AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE
First, I kind of despised this book as it kept triggering a niggling memory in the back of my mind of a fairy tale that I've read countless times before. I also kept feeling like I've read countless versions of this fairy tale before, and with much annoyance I just googled plot bits with vague terminology. This wikipedia article sums up the fairy tale nicely. WIKIPEDIA LINK OF ANNOYANCE
I would like to take a moment and share my feelings about re-imaginings of fairy tales.
If a story is rewritten that recreates a fairy tale, please state that somewhere obviously. Give us a clue on the back of the book or inside cover, or a forward at the front. Maybe even include the original tale that you embellished and warped at the back of the book.
For the actual story content; if you recreate a fairy tale, please do it completely. Do not take the whimsy of a fairy tale where it gives the spartan details, shares the cleverness of a character, or has a hidden lesson in it. Flesh it out completely and explain everything that needs explaining; with a story it's much harder to suspend disbelief if the details we're supposed to take in stride are only half-formed.
I like it when fairy tales are re-imagined for the most part. I love the series Fables by Bill Willingham which is a re-imagining of everything surrounding fairy tales.
This book did not set well with me at all. TO SPOILER LAND WE GO.
First, the book delved into the life of Reveka and told us the sob story of how she grew up in the convent after her mother died giving birth to her. Her mother originally left her father because he was a soldier and she could not endure him or something vague like that. The mother is vaguely hinted at throughout the book like maybe she has a sibling or some other relative that may or may not be relevant to Reveka! WHO KNOWS? Clearly, there's going to be a second book, perhaps even a series. I sense it's going to be a series in which it drags a lot of details or plot points out with no final resolution.
Anyways, Reveka is an apprentice to the herbalist and claims to teach the monk who is her master more about herbs than he has taught her as Reveka learned much about plant lore at the convent. Annoyed yet? Me too.
Her father came to claim Reveka from the convent and she's only 13, and the nuns informed her father that she is a liar. Her father in turn made her take an oath to never lie to him. I find this detail disorienting as it adds no value to the story and is rather distracting with how many times she brought it up. I suppose it could be a big deal that she was previously a liar, or maybe it was a really bad allusion that she might be an unreliable narrator. I don't really care, it was annoying as crap.
I'm going to ignore a bit of the book because there's not really much to say about it. It's essentially the introduction to the princesses, some characters that dwell in or around the castle, and Reveka 'developing' her sense of self. (COUGH BADLY COUGH...NO JUST BADLY.)
So as the apprentice herablist, she makes things around the castle that include plants. For example, she makes the bathing herbs that the princesses bathe in every day. She runs into Marjut (Marjeet? whatever, not important) who is the castle gossip. Marjut has such a token role of 'having a big mouth' and making everything seem more than it is or hinting at things that are not.
You know what? I just don't care. This book is atrocious. Let me get down to the things that bothered the hell out of me.
Marjut is a witch. Reveka only discovers this when she approaches Marjut about needing a witch as she needs to make an invisibility cap. Marjut reveals to her that she is a witch JUST LIKE THAT. "Oh you need a witch? CONVENIENTLY I AM A WITCH AND TOTALLY TOLD YOU BECAUSE YOU SAID YOU NEEDED ONE. It's not like the kingdom fears and despises witches and the greatest secret I keep is the fact that I am a witch. ...WHATEVER." ...what is that? That is inconsistent story building. Damn you book.
The princess consort (currently betrothed to the king who is the father of the cursed princesses) seeks out Reveka's help after she figures out that Reveka is trying to break the curse. It's alluded to that the princess consort has spies everywhere, and later when the monk herbalist makes astute observations out loud about Reveka to Reveka's father, it can be assumed that he might be a spy for the princess. MIGHT. Of course the book doesn't provide any real graspable answers, so there's that.
Because of the curse, the princesses put everyone to sleep. And by sleep I mean an eternal slumber that they might die from. This is a huge deterrent to people who are trying to break the curse and free the princesses. HOWEVER, it is later revealed that the thing that is the cause of the curse has nothing to do with the people sleeping. It's the princesses who kind of concocted some sort of mixture that put everyone to sleep. They have no idea how or why it works, just that it did. So it's basically dumb luck that they're murdering people through sleep. OH, and then at the end of the book, Reveka is helped by a river nymph who just so happens to provide her with the 'solution' to the sleepers sleep.
The last quarter of the book is a whirlwind of, "Oh crap, I better wrap this up, HURRY THROUGH EVERYTHING."
...yeah it gets worse.
So at some point Reveka manages to make an invisibility hat through the unknowing help of a kind princess, the witch, and her own 'pluck' I suppose. She stays in the Princesses tower and watches as the door is barred from the outside and they journey through a secret passageway from their fireplace. (OH, THE CURSE HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR SIX YEARS BY THE BY. BECAUSE THAT'S NOT AN IMPORTANT DETAIL.) Reveka follows the princesses into a strange world where they pass through three seasons and she collects samples from the foliage in each season. (She doesn't do anything with the foliage by the way. Nothing. She just grabs it.) They come upon the boats which are manned by the missing men (oh yeah, sometimes young, handsome men who have dared to break the curse end up entirely missing; LOL THEY'RE TRAPPED IN THE UNDERWORLD), Reveka gets into a boat with a princess and off she goes to see the curse maker.
IT TURNS OUT THAT IT'S A ZMEU OR SOME CRAP THAT HAS BEEN HINTED AT ALL ALONG FROM A TAPESTRY IN THE CASTLE. GAH. IT TOOK WAY TOO LONG TO KNOW THAT. I LOATHE YOUR STORY TELLING, BOOK. SO MANY EXPLICATIVES.
So the zmeu or whatever (it's basically a weird crap dragon) actually isn't THE bad guy kind of. He made a bargain with the princesses that they could dance or marry him; each night they had to dance with him and if they lasted twelve years then they were free of their contract. The reason they had to enter into the contract is that one of the dumb princesses went into the underworld (oh yeah, they're in the under world, and no I don't know how to explain that) on accident and ate some of the food. The zmeu was like DUDE, YOU ATE THE FOOD, YOU HAVE TO STAY, SO, UH, MARRY ME? Then the princess was like, "WELL MAYBE NOT ME, BUT I HAVE ELEVEN OTHER SISTERS WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED".
The part that really doesn't make sense about that, is when the princesses tried to go to other countries to marry or just not go down every night, terrible storms would happen and the princes would fall asleep and it's so stupid. None of it makes sense. Ever. The zmeu at one point explains that it was very taxing on him to sync the underworld's time with the above world's time (as they run on different time cycles; OF COURSE BECAUSE THAT MAKES SENSE) so how would he have the power to create the devastating storms in addition to making sure the time cycles remained in sync?
There's also a long explanation about the Underworld and how it's all jacked up and relates to the world above being all jacked up and there's allusions to political forces trying to take over kingdoms and blah blah blah blah annoying.
Basically the zmeu was trying to get a willing bride to heal the Underworld, because again it's all jacked up for some unknown reason. To free the princesses and her father (who wandered down to see if he could help the princesses, oh and did I mention he and a princess are in love? What? When did the father (who is a retired soldier/gardener who apparently can be terrifying as all get out, that's never explained either) have a chance to love the princess? WHAT THE CRAP BOOK) who had followed the princesses down there after he stole his daughter's (Reveka) first invisibility hat? Oh yeah, she made two invisibility hats. I don't want to talk about it.
ANYWAYS. So Reveka takes off her invisibility hat and says she'll marry the zmeu; granted he frees everyone who is trapped in the underworld (many her father and the princesses, and a sheep herder boy who has a weird crush on her; I don't want to talk about that either because it doesn't make sense. He just stares at her with an open mouth and she's like WELL, HE LIKES ME RIGHT? WHATEVER). So everyone returns to the surface world except sheep herder boy who vows to serve as her footman. The zmeu is not actually that bad for being a feared demon dragon thing. He turns out to be one of the only decent characters which is hilarious.
So until Reveka eats the food of the Underworld she won't be queen of the section that the zmeu controls. So Reveka holds off for as long as she can which distresses the zmeu, and then she begins to care what happens in the Underworld as she sees a soul disappear before her. Yep. So in a fit of anger from the zmeu about him needing a willing bride, she eats part of a pomegranate. Five seeds to be exact. So she strikes the bargain that she'll live in the world above for five years and return when she's eighteen.
Well then she goes to the world above and calls for him and works out that she'll visit him every five days.
Book ends.
FINALLY. It was FREAKING terrible.
I understand what she was trying to do, I just think it was so horribly rushed through that she failed to solidly establish what she was trying to accomplish. Also, Reveka kind of acted like a thirteen year old sometimes and other times like a middle aged adult. Yeah, inconsistent character to go with inconsistent story. WHOO. THE CIRCLE IS COMPLETE.
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Happy reading!
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