Been A While

Oh wow, I haven't posted in a while. I forgot to even mention that I was going to meet an author I particularly admire, Neal Shusterman who wrote the Everlost books and Unwind, to name the ones that I have read. I'm really hoping to read a few of his other books because they all sound amazing. I wanted to review his book Unwind as well as include a few quotes from the interview we got (over Skype, not in person) but I am still waiting on permission for that. Any who, I'm going to try to get through as many books as possible to catch up.Firstly, to go along with my post on fairy tale retellings, I want to quickly go over a couple of books that I put on my "to-read" list. Cloaked in Red by Vivian Vande Velde is the first. This book is small and simple, in fact in only took me about 2 hours to read the book. It is just a collection of 8 short stories, all different retellings of Little Red Riding Hood. Each story is told from a different perspective, and each brings a little more to the story then we have ever heard before. If you have seen the movie Hoodwinked, this is your kind of book.
The Author's Note at the beginning of the book had me rolling on the floor in tears it was so funny, and all of my friends reacted the same exact way when they read it. Unfortunately, the author's note was so well written and hilarious it lessened the greatness of the rest of the book. I enjoyed the first 5 stories, but I wasn't knocked off my feet. The real magic didn't come back until the last 3 stories, which were all fantastic. They were clever and fun and I'm so glad to have read those views of the story. Really fun, but it doesn't live up to the wonderful promise of the author's note.

Rating: 3/5


Next comes Wild Orchid, A Retelling of "The Ballad of Mulan" by Cameron Dokey, part of the Once Upon A Time series. If you love the movie Mulan, warning, this is very very different. But I adored it! It still wasn't a particularly well-written book, but it was better than the other Once Upon A Time books that I have read. Especially the ones from Cameron Dokey. I will warn you that the story line that makes the story, Mulan heading to war in her father's place, is a long time coming. This story is a lot of exposition, because the beginning of Mulan's story is very different from the Disney movie. It is much more sad.
I read this in no time at all because, again, it is just a short book. A lot of retellings are (except for East by Edith Pattou, which is just a beautiful book) very short. But this book had a lot of heart. I connected with the characters so much because of this struggle that doesn't exist in the story I have known growing up. I really loved this book, but I will warn you, I cried on multiple occasions. Then again, I am a crier, so there's that. Hope you enjoy!


Rating: 4/5



P.S. Look forward to my reviews on Unwind by Neal Shusterman and The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. Both great books which I really meant to review sooner....