Bookends About The Goose Girl

Title: The Goose Girl
Author: Shannon Hale
Source: library
Rating: ★★★★☆
Review Summary: I really liked how true this book was to the style of a fairy tale and how well it fleshed out the original story.

I picked up this version of The Goose Girl planning on using it as an original to read before another re-telling. Further research suggests you’d need a children’s book (or the wikipedia page) to get the most original story, since the original is far too short for a book. The basic gist of both this book and the original fairy tale is as follows. A princess is sent to marry a prince in a foreign land and on the journey, her maid uses some form of magic to take on the princess’s identity. Once they reach the foreign capital, the princess becomes a goose girl and must decide if and how she wants to regain her place as a princess.

Scapemaker

Title: Scapemaker
Author: Steve V Cypert
Source: from publisher for review
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Review Summary: The plot was creative and interesting, but the writing was a somewhat stiff and the ending fell a little flat for me.

Scapemaker takes place in a world were some people, known as “Dreamscapers”, are born with the ability to enter a dream world in which monsters and myths are real. Although Matthew’s father teaches dreamscaping, Matthew is unaware of the existence of Dreamscapers until his father’s mysterious descent into a coma forces him to learn. He quickly finds that his father’s coma was caused by events in the dreamworld, events which have left a powerful talisman his father was guarding unprotected. Now Matthew must act as guardian and try to free his father before it’s too late.

Bookends About The Obsidian Mirror

Title: The Obsidian Mirror
Author: Catherine Fisher
Source: from publisher for review
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Review Summary: A fun, light adventure story without a really great protagonist but which works because of the mysterious setting with potential for some great world building.

The many characters in The Obsidian Mirror are all drawn together by one thing – the mirror’s amazing ability to bend time and space, allowing the user to travel forward or backward in time. Jake desperately wants to find out what happened to his father, who he believes was murdered by the mysterious recluse currently in possession of the mirror. Others want to own the mirror to gain power, others to destroy it, and others for reasons yet undiscovered. Unfortunately, they can’t all get what they want…