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Rainbow Explorer
, October 16, 2015
(view all comments by Rainbow Explorer)
Another engaging story that expands on the classic fairy tales and rhymes of the Brother's Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, and Mother Goose (with brief introductions to the legends of L. Frank Baum, Lewis Carroll, C. S. Lewis, Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, and a couple of other classic children's author's), intertwining them into a wonderfully integrated story. Unfortunately, this book neither flowed as smoothly and seamlessly as the first book in the series, nor did it integrate the "real world" events and characters with those of the "fairy tale world", as effectively. Thus, it only scored a 3.5 or 4.0, from me. This was unfortunate because there are so many delightful characters that we are newly introduced to, along with those returning and growing further from the first book. In fact, this book was much more "character-centric" and not nearly as "setting-descriptive" as book #1 was.
The whole romantic relationship between the twin's mom, Charlotte, and Dr. Bob felt rushed, superficial, and callously handled. There were significant lies and deceptions surrounding those events that the author chose to breeze right over, rather than address in any genuine, sensitive, or deep fashion. It was particularly appalling, to me, to see how the author opted to "tell" the reader, rather than "show" the reader that an authentic loving bond had developed between the twins and Dr. Bob. That whole rushed dynamic was so artificially contrived and disrespectful of the needs and feelings of kids/teens, it left me nauseous.
In the first book, there was a rich, meaningful balance of action, relationships, philosophy/insights, fascinating settings, and treasured memories. For some reason, the author opted to abandon both the appealing settings and the heart-warming philosophy/insight focus of book one and shift, instead, to an overtly Christian religiosity, this time around. Over and over, confusing discussions about heaven, souls, and the "seven deadly sins" are thrown in, with no explanations provided for their inclusion. Fairy tale characters have never, historically, had anything to do with "sins", nor tried to rid the world of them.
The blending of classic, secular fairy tales and Christian mythology was deeply disturbing, to me, as fantasy worlds containing magic are not compatible with any specific religious ideology - they're two different and separate phenomena. The morality contents of the folktales of Mother Goose, Hans Christian Anderson, and the Brother's Grimm historically never had anything to do with any specific religion or religious orientation, anymore than Aesop's Fables or The Arabian Nights have. It was very unpleasant to encounter Christian concepts intermingled with classic, secular myths/folklore, then shoved into the story, as though they were both naturally intertwined and obviously compatible. From my perspective, they absolutely are not!
The disjointedness of book #2 left me frequently confused by the odd insertion of new characters who appeared to merely be tangential to the story line. No doubt, they will appear in later books, but their insertions into this book repeatedly interrupted the story flow, dragged the pace of events down, and left the reader struggling to keep track of the character digressions. It was this frequent use of literary guile that made this second book far less enjoyable to read than the first one was.
At times, I found my mind wandering off and losing interest in the story all together. However, there were an amazing number of unexpected twists and turns in the plot that made me glad I stuck with it to the end, even though I didn't find it nearly as personally fulfilling or emotionally satisfying as I had expected the book to be. I so hope the third book is an improvement on this one and removes the religious preoccupation from the morality concepts and philosophical discussions ahead.
Having read the book in audiobook format, I'm keenly aware that this author is far more skilled at adopting various, different "voices" and accents, than are most audiobook readers, making the story really come alive. There are times, however, when he reads so rapidly that it's difficult to process all he's said and/or to catch his poorly enunciated words. I'm not certain why he felt so rushed in reading his book. I believe it would have been more enjoyable if he had slowed his reading pace a bit.
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