Because the story is meant to be potentially a ‘dream’ of Bitsy I did find that the disjointed and episodic style while it might have normally been odd worked when I kept this in mind. He surprised me, and I was rooting for him through the entire book, I was really hoping him and Bitsy would be endgame with their adorable banter, and his clear and obvious attraction and love for her. While Bitsy makes a few offhand comments about maybe making changes when she becomes queen, there’s no real fire behind her words. To access your ebook(s) after purchasing, you can download the free Glose app or read instantly on your browser by logging into Glose. I can 100% guarantee my mom would not have let me touch this book with a ten-foot pole when I was eleven.

This funny, clever and very enjoyable verse retelling of Rumpelstiltskin takes the story back to its original darkly horrifying roots and adds a smart, likeable heroine who saves the day with a story. One of the main reasons the writing was cheesy was because Bitsy (I won't get into how weird of a name the author chose) talks directly to the reader.

The verse novel format (meaning fewer words on each page) and the many illustrations throughout combine to make it an appealing read. His work has poetry and performance at its heart, drawing on over 16 years' experience running dynamic creative literacy sessions in schools. Bitsy admires her mother for her beauty, her composure, and her ability to handle almost any situation, but her mother is a traditional woman rooted in old fashioned ways of ruling.

It is in this world that Bitsy goes on a journey of growth and there is a distinct journey that if you stay with the story is both moving and empowering. She has dyslexia so I thought the poetry might be difficult for her, but she whizzed through it faster than any other book she has read! Of course, Eshe’s warning is not heeded and the christening goes ahead with the fairy godmothers (thirteen, rather than seven) offering their gifts to the child. Bitsy as a main protagonist was fine but I didn’t particularly connect with her and I didn’t feel like the romance worked at all. Darker themes were hinted at throughout the novel yet their execution was so trivial and frankly insulting that it was hard to believe that the author had done any kind of due diligence before perpetuating harmful stereotypes.

The winged creature curses Princess Rose so that she will die after having pricked her finger, and it is Eshe’s role to soften the curse so that the princess sleeps rather than dies. She after all was considered plain in her world and here she was viewed as beautiful, but she didn’t allow that to deter her desire to be a better person and help others and not focus on just herself. I did like the unique style but admit a few times I had to remind myself this was meant to be a sort of dream/alternate world. As mentioned Bitsy and Peregrine were both well written and they both had well-developed arcs throughout the book. Overall the story had a chance at greatness, but what little glimpses of good attempts were not enough to pull this story through for me.