Entwined (utgåvan 2011)

Great book, exciting and intense, I enjoyed reading it. The characters were deep as well. ( )

I read this book for the "A Book Chosen Solely By It's Cover" part of my 2018 reading challenge. Now that I know it is a retelling of the Brother's Grimm "The Twelve Dancing Princesses", the plot makes a lot more sense. I still felt that the plot was a little weak in spots, but it was interesting enough that I read it in one day. ( )

The characters are spoiled monsters who drone on about dancing and curtsying until I want to murder them all to make the pain stop. They are also all complete idiots.

And the writing is bad.

This is sweet retelling of the twelve dancing princesses. I liked how their names were ranged alphabetically. It dragged a bit at times and there was some overuse of the word pouf, but the danger and romance and dancing made up for it. ( )

"Entwined" was cute. It was sweet, dainty, and mostly well-written (that is to say, there were only a few spots where the tone tripped over a modern phrase or word), and it was good, clean fun. My favorite part was the relationship between all the sisters--those were all so well done. All twelve of them were individuals, and they were all believable for their ages.

(TWELVE female characters that spent the whole book in center stage!! Can you imagine?? I was in heaven.)

However, I did get awfully bored of Azalea (the main character) needing to be saved. Over and over, she faints, or falls in an icy stream, or just generally needs to be babied by one of The Men. Yes, the physical climax of the story involved the sisters saving their father (one of The Men), but that doesn't negate the prior "weak ankles" bits. I would have liked to see more of Azalea's struggle to deal with the Keeper on her own, since she seems literally unable to tell anyone about his dastardly plans, and how isolating and frightening that experience was. I also found myself ambivalent during the big showdown with the Keeper.

Overall, the story was "meh" and I had difficulty staying with it. The twelve princesses, however, were done better than I ever would have dared to dream they would be. They make "Entwined" worth reading, and I do recommend it. (Just... maybe go to the library. I would've been put-out to have spent $20 on a hardcover copy.) ( )