Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Publication Date: March 29, 2011
Goodreads Description:
Confined to their dreary castle while mourning their mother's death, Princess Azalea and her 11 sisters join The Keeper, who is trapped in a magic passageway, in a nightly dance that soon becomes nightmarish.
Review:
(Highlight for Spoilers)
I love when fairy tales are revisited by an author that respects them, loves them, and can then build upon them. Heather Dixon seems to be such an author. Entwined is a retelling of Grimm's "The Shoes that Were Danced to Pieces," but it is also much, much more. Dixon does an excellent job of turning a story about twelve rather frivolous girls into a complex story about grief, family, and the difficult choices made in difficult times. However, I feel very mixed about this book, so I will review it in lists.
The Good:
- My overall impression was of a beautiful, well crafted world. Dixon took the bare bones of the Grimm story and made it a living, breathing thing. Borrowing different elements of her Eathesburian folklore from folktales and fairy tales lent them authenticity, but she combined them in a way that felt distinct and fresh.
- I love the relationship between the girls. Even though the story is told primarily from the point of view of the eldest, Azalea, all of the girls are given distinct personalities. The younger girls may be a bit more two dimensional than the eldest three, but the way the girls all interact with each other just works. Dixon really has a feel for large family dynamics.
- I like that the relationships between the eldest three girls and their love interests are reciprocal and healthy. (Spoiler) Okay, Bramble and Teddie may have been a bit too love at first sight, but I just assumed there was more going on that I didn't see because the story was following Azalea. (End Spoiler) I also like that they each feel like real guys you might actually meet. None are paragons of virtue, nor are they damaged bad boys.
- The bad guy is bad. Really creepy bad.
- It is hard not to like a King that is so quirky in his need for organization that his daughters are all named for flowers in alphabetical order. I really enjoyed watching his personality develop.
- I really liked the way dance is woven throughout the story in a way that shows just how vital it is to the girls. Dixon takes the very element that made the princesses seem frivolous in the Grimm story and uses it to ground them.
- I also like that the girls help save themselves. The men may charge in for the rescue, but they fight alongside the princesses.
The not as good:
- I don't understand why the girls feel as they do about Fairweller. There is never really any justification for their negative feelings. (Spoiler) And when they object to his marriage to Clover, it just feels really classist and shallow. He is the only employee, rather than family friend, to ask to marry one of the daughters. Even in the face of Clover's justification for her affection, he is still dismissed out of hand. I really didn't like it. (End Spoiler)
- The King's relationship with his daughters. I'm sorry, but if they used to call him Papa, when did he change to "the King?" I could understand if he was originally affectionate, then became cool because their mother died. I could also understand if he were originally reserved in his affection, then thawed because their mother's death forced him to interact with the girls in a new way. However, it is just confusing that they all used to be close and he was outwardly affectionate. Then he had the middle coldness period where he became "the King" and forced them to learn all sorts of rules. When he comes back from the war he is magically caring again. That personality change in the middle is unrelated to any part of the plot to which we as the readers are privy. The set up for the familial distance just didn't make sense and felt too contrived. They were at odds because they had to be at odds for Keeper to meet the girls. They get a better relationship because they have to for the King to save the girls. That said, I liked watching him redevelop his relationship with his daughters, and it often was really touching.
- The bad guy is bad. Really creepy bad. I know I said that was a good thing, and it is. It's just that, well, everyone else gets a real story. A human, relatable reason for participating in the fairy tale. Keeper's personality is very well developed, but his motivation - his story - is not. (Spoiler) Considering how much we are told about The High King D"Eathe, all the hits dropped about his one love and the magic he performed, I think we could have done with just a little more. WHY did he kill her? WHY did power become more important? WHAT made him change? (End Spoiler) It would be okay if all the characters were just moving mechanically through the fairy tale, but to provide the WHYs for every other character but the Keeper made the absence of his WHYs even more apparent.
Right after I finished Entwined, my problems with it felt rather large. However, the longer I got away from it, the more positive I felt about the book. It really is beautifully written and the characters are lovely.
I Borrowed Entwined from my Local Library
