Started: December 27, 2017
Finished: August 29, 2018
(Those dates are actually misleading. It didn't take me 9 months to finish this book. I only got a couple pages into it on December 27, and then I loaned the book to my wife. I thought it would be good for her to practice her English. I didn't actually get the book back until about a month ago.)
Why I Read This Book
In my review of The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner, I wrote that I was going to try to read more light-escapist books in the evening to try to break my Internet/ television addiction. (I concluded that one of the reasons I spend so much time on Youtube is because all the books on my shelf were too serious, and I lost the willpower to read serious books after 9pm.)
And so, here I am with a review of a book obviously meant for children.
It's - not - the - first - time - I've - done - this - on this blog, so I've gotten over my embarrassment long ago.
Also the selection of books in Asia is limited. If I were in a bookstore back home, I'm sure there would be a thousand other books catering to my pet interests that would have grabbed me before this one. But here in Vietnam, the selection of English books is limited to a few shelves.
Anyways, I was browsing the bookshelves in Vietnam, looking for some light reading. And I saw this book. It looked juvenile, of course, but I had already given myself permission to buy something juvenile for reading after 9pm.
And, because there is an inner child inside all of us, I admit to being taken in by the cover art, and being charmed by the idea of a world of fairy tales, and castles, and green forest, and anthropomorphic frogs. And I felt a childish desire to immerse myself in these fairy tales.
The inside cover of the book flipped out to reveal a map of the Land of Stories, which also seemed to promise an immersive world:
And so I bought the book.
On my way out of the shopping mall, I actually ran into a couple of co-workers. We started chatting, and they asked what book I had bought, and, somewhat embarrassed, I showed them this one. (I made sure to assure them that this was in addition to all the serious books I was also reading.)
"Oh, hey, this is by that guy from Glee."
I hadn't caught this in the bookstore (There was nothing on the book cover that mentioned anything about Glee.) But it turns out that Chris Colfer is indeed that guy from Glee. (I'm not a fan of Glee, but I used to watch it when there was nothing else on. It was one of the few English programs that was part of the cable package in Southeast Asia.)
If I had realized the author was a 25 year old actor, I might not have bought the book. (Not that I have anything against Chris Colfer, but I'm skeptical that someone who is famous for one art can successfully transfer over to another.) However, now that I've read the book, I can report that Chris Colfer has successfully pulled off the transition. It's not a perfect book. (I'll get around to nit-picking it down below.) But it's perfectly readable.
The Review
So, if I haven't made this clear already, keep in mind that I'm not in the target audience for this book. I'm a 40 year old man, reviewing a book for 11 year old girls. Take my opinion with a huge grain of salt.
That being said...
I liked the book well enough.
It starts out pretty slow, describing the problems two twins (Alex and Conner) are having at school and home after their dad died.
The prose is readable. And it flows. Although one thing that jumps out at you right away is that the twins don't talk at all like real children. For example, on page 26, when they are discussing which fairy tale to pick for a school project:
"You can't choose that one," Alex said, shaking her head. "That's the most obvious one! You have to select something more challenging to impress Mrs. Peters. You should pick something with a message hidden deeper inside it, one that isn't so on-the-surface."...et cetera. And it's like that throughout the whole book.
Conner sighed. It was always easier to just go along with Alex instead of arguing with her, but sometimes it was unavoidable.
"Fine, I'll pick 'Sleeping Beauty,' " he decided.
"Interesting selection," Alex said, intrigued. "What do you suppose the moral of that story is?"
"Don't piss off your neighbors, I guess," Conner said.
Alex grunted disapprovingly. "Be serious, Conner! That is not the moral of 'Sleeping Beauty'," she reprimanded.
"Sure it is," Conner explained. "If the king and queen had just invited that crazy enchantress to their daughter's party in the first place, none of that stuff ever would have happened." (p.26)
But I think the problem of unrealistic dialogue is SO common in children's literature that you just have to accept it, and move on. (Did The Hardy Boys ever talk like real people?)
The story plods along, but finally on page 80, the twins travel into "The Land of Stories" and then the fun begins.
The portal into "The Land of Stories", in this case a magical book, is a cheap plot device. But then so was the wardrobe in the Narnia books. And at least this book has the self-awareness to make fun of itself:
"I was just thinking," Conner said. "Alice went to Wonderland after she fell into a rabbit hold. Dorothy's whole house was scooped up by a tornado that dropped her off in Oz. The Narnia kids traveled through an old wardrobe.... and we ended up in the fairy-tale world by falling through a book."
"Where are you going with this, Conner?" Alex said.
"I'm just saying, it's kind of lame compared to the others," Conner said with another sigh. (p,108)
The best part of this book is the setting.
Because Chris Colfer has chosen to set his fantasy in "The Land of Stories" (which he uses as synonymous with the land of fairy tales) much of the work of creating a fantasy world is already done for him. The reader already brings their mental images of fairy tales, castles, princesses and fairies with them. And all Chris Colfer needs to do is provide just enough description to provide a scaffold for the reader to place their pre-existing mental images of fairy tale land.
But, to give credit where it is due, Chris Colfer does this excellently. See, for example, his description of the Fairy Kingdom from pages 268-269:
They reached the heart of the kingdom and were completely bewildered by what they saw. It was like they were standing in a gigantic tropical garden with large, colorful flowers of all shapes and species. There were weeping willows over small ponds and vines that grew across the ground and up the trees. There were beautiful bridges over many streams.This is typical of the descriptions throughout the book as the twins travel to many different places in The Land of Stories. It's not overly detailed, but just enough to bring out your sense of wonder and enchantment of a fairy tale land. It works.
There were fairies everywhere. Many flew around in the air, some just hovered above the ground, and some walked on small paths adjacent to the one the twins were on. They were all different shapes and sizes and colors. Some were taller than Alex and Conner, some were as small as Trix, and some didn't seem even to be solid, but rather made from pure light.
There were just as many male fairies as there were female. Some of the fairies wore gowns, others' clothes were made entirely from plant materials, and some wore nothing at all. Many had made miniature homes in the branches of the trees or in mushrooms on the ground, and there were fairies who even lived underwater with colorful fish. (p. 268-269)
All the famous fairy tale characters are also living in this world, and many of them (Goldilocks, Jack, Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Cinderella, etc) become major protagonists.
The plot, however, is a weak point.
The over-arching plot is okay.
Once inside The Land of Stories, the twins must find a way to get back home. And it turns out that the only way home is to make the Wishing Spell. And the Wishing Spell can only be made by assembling a bunch of items that have to be gathered from all over the Land of Stories.
I've watched enough film criticism videos on Youtube to know that this kind of plot device is known as a MacGuffin (W) and is usually mocked by literary and film critics. But for a children's book like this, I think it works just fine. It's just another thing you'll have to forgive to go along with the book.
Plus, there are actually two plots going on at once. While the twins are wandering around collecting their MacGuffin devices, meanwhile the evil queen from the Snow White story has escaped from prison and is plotting something while everyone from The Land of Stories is trying to hunt her down. These dual plots help to keep the interest up.
The big problem with this book, however, is all the various mini-adventures that the twins get into along the way. In each case, the set-ups are okay, but Chris Colfer never knows how to pay them off in a satisfying way.
Again, one example from many should suffice to give the flavor. The twins are capture by the trolls and goblins and taken down as prisoners to work in the mines. (Interesting set-up). They end up getting freed because one of the troll girls has a crush on Conner, and she agrees to free them in exchange for a kiss. (Boring resolution.)
In the same way, the encounter with the witch at the gingerbread house, and the troll at the bridge also all have really boring and lame resolutions.
In the end, I kept reading because of my enchantment with the setting and descriptions, even though I kept rolling my eyes at how boring the adventures were along the way.
But, if you can make it all the way to the end of the book (...and you can--it's a children's book and a really quick read...) then the final climatic showdown is really good. There's an epic final battle between all the good characters and all the bad characters that takes place in a crumbling castle and has a lot of great swashbuckling and narrow escapes.
(According to Wikipedia, a film adaptation of this book is in the works. And I'm actually down for it. That last battle really would look great on film.)
There's a few reveals along the way that are so obvious I think most adult readers will see them coming a mile away. The clues and evidence are just overwhelming long before we get to the denouement.
But perhaps these work better with younger readers?
Besides, the fact that the plot reveals are so easy to guess might not be a bad thing. I'm reminded of an article I once read about predictable plot twists in Westworld (article HERE) that argued that plot twists should be somewhat predictable. The author should lay some clues and foreshadowing before the plot twists comes. That's just playing fair. The thing we should get angry about are not plot twists that come out of nowhere, and are not earned.
It may be comparing apples and oranges to bring Westworld into all of this, but I think the same principle applies.
Other Notes
My embarrassment about reading this book as a 40-year-old man seems to have been presaged by Chris Colfer, who prefaces his book with (of all things) this quote from C.S. Lewis:
"Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again."Perhaps there's some truth to this. When you're in your teens and your 20s, the world is your adventure, and you don't need to escape into fairy tales. When you're middle-aged, you feel tired and worn out, and you need more of an escape into fantasy. So maybe 40 is about the right age to start reading fairy tales again.
--C.S. Lewis
...Or maybe I'm over-simplifying. If you search the archives of this blog (and see what I was reading and writing), you can see that there was never not a time in my life when I didn't want to escape into fantasy.
Complaining about Plot Holes (Spoilers)
...So, when they had to swim under the moat on page 301, they got everything they owned completely soaked, right? That should have ruined the paper journal they had with them, right?
Also...
* I mentioned this book (or alluded to it) very briefly on the vlog: Books I'm Currently Reading
Video Review
Video review HERE and embedded below:
Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky on Challenging Authority
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