Title: Entwined
Author: Heather Dixon
Genres: Fairy Tales, Fantasy, Young Adult
Publisher: Greenwillow Books (Imprint of HarperCollins)
Date Published: March 29th, 2011
Edition: Hardcover
Rating:
Azalea is trapped. Just when she should feel that everything is before her . . . beautiful gowns, dashing suitors, balls filled with dancing . . . it’s taken away. All of it.
The Keeper understands. He’s trapped, too, held for centuries within the walls of the palace. And so he extends an invitation.
Every night, Azalea and her eleven sisters may step through the enchanted passage in their room to dance in his silver forest.
But there is a cost.
The Keeper likes to keep things.
Azalea may not realize how tangled she is in his web until it is too late.
My Review:
The moment I saw the cover and description for this book, I was beyond thrilled to read this. I’ve been on a bit of a fairy-tale kick as of lately so this immediately caught my attention. After a bit of searching, I learned that this is a retelling/based on the fairy tale, The Twelve Dancing Princesses; although I’ve never read or heard of it.
So this book is from Azalea’s point of view. After a tragic event happens for their family, her and her eleven sisters are forced to go into “mourning-mode”. They’re forced to wear black, they can’t go outside, and worst of all, they can’t dance — for an entire year! This tragedy, as it is for them, pushes them to do something kind of extreme. You see, the house is full of all sorts of magic. When they find what seems to be some kind of portal into a garden pavilion, they take full advantage of it and go there at every opportunity to dance. But there is a Keeper of the pavilion, and he seems to be living up to his name.
I truly enjoyed this book! It sort of has a feel of a mix between several different fantasy-type stories; such as Alice in Wonderland, Chronicles of Narnia, and even a bit of The Cat in the Hat and Jumanji.
I was totally picturing a mix between the house from The Cat in the Hat movie and the house in Jumanji when she came out of the fireplace to find the house all topsy-turvy. Great visuals! So much fun.
Honestly, the visuals in this book are truly fantastic. It’s not every book I can say this about, but I could totally see this being made into a movie. It would make for fantastic graphics and all sorts of magical goodness.
The main thing preventing me from giving this four stars is that the beginning of the book drags a little bit. It’s setting up relationships and going through literally a year’s worth of mourning, so that’s understandable. But it would have been nice if the first pages of the book could have been as fast-paced as the last 100 pages of the book.
But despite that, it is a truly fun book. Not only does it have all kinds of magic that takes you to another place, but it has a touch of romance, and even humor! I was so pleasantly surprised by the humor in this book. Bramble and Lord Teddie are my absolute favorite characters, but I also just love the interaction between Bramble and Mr. Bradford in the beginning — so charming!
I have to say that my favorite aspect of this book though was the relationship between their father and the girls. This part of the book was so touching and real. I loved seeing the little changes here and there and the growing going on between them as a result of their circumstances.
Overall, this is a great little fairy-tale. It was really fun to read and I’d recommend it to those people who love reading fairy-tale retellings, or just fantasy in general. You’ll be mesmerized by the imagery and captured by the characters and their relationships.
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