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Egerton Hall #1
The Tower Room
A contemporary Rapunzel story follows the love affair between a boarding school student who lives in a tower room and a new laboratory assistant who scales a scaffold to her window.
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
About the author
Adèle Geras
190 books137 followersAdèle Geras FRSL (born 15 March 1944) is an English writer for young children, teens and adults. Her husband was the Marxist academic Norman Geras and their daughter Sophie Hannah is also a novelist and poet.
Geras was born in Jerusalem, British Mandatory Palestine. Her father was in the Colonial Service and she had a varied childhood, living in countries such as Nigeria, Cyprus, Tanzania, Gambia and British North Borneo in a short span of time. She attended Roedean School in Brighton and then graduated from St Hilda's College, Oxford with a degree in Modern Languages. She was known for her stage and vocal talents, but decided instead to become a full-time writer.
Geras's first book was Tea at Mrs Manderby's, which was published in 1976. Her first full-length novel was The Girls in the Velvet Frame. She has written more than 95 books for children, young adults, and adults. Her best-known books are Troy (shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize and Highly Commended for the Carnegie Medal) Ithaka, Happy Ever After (previously published as the Egerton Hall Trilogy), Silent Snow, Secret Snow, and A Thousand Yards of Sea.
Her novels for adults include: Facing the Light, Hester's Story, Made in Heaven, and A Hidden Life.
Geras won two prizes in the United States, one the Sydney Taylor Book Award for the My Grandmother's Stories and the National Jewish Book Award for Golden Windows. She has also won prizes for her poetry and was a joint winner of the Smith Doorstop Poetry Pamphlet Award, offered by the publisher of that name.
(from Wikipedia)
Geras was born in Jerusalem, British Mandatory Palestine. Her father was in the Colonial Service and she had a varied childhood, living in countries such as Nigeria, Cyprus, Tanzania, Gambia and British North Borneo in a short span of time. She attended Roedean School in Brighton and then graduated from St Hilda's College, Oxford with a degree in Modern Languages. She was known for her stage and vocal talents, but decided instead to become a full-time writer.
Geras's first book was Tea at Mrs Manderby's, which was published in 1976. Her first full-length novel was The Girls in the Velvet Frame. She has written more than 95 books for children, young adults, and adults. Her best-known books are Troy (shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize and Highly Commended for the Carnegie Medal) Ithaka, Happy Ever After (previously published as the Egerton Hall Trilogy), Silent Snow, Secret Snow, and A Thousand Yards of Sea.
Her novels for adults include: Facing the Light, Hester's Story, Made in Heaven, and A Hidden Life.
Geras won two prizes in the United States, one the Sydney Taylor Book Award for the My Grandmother's Stories and the National Jewish Book Award for Golden Windows. She has also won prizes for her poetry and was a joint winner of the Smith Doorstop Poetry Pamphlet Award, offered by the publisher of that name.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
June 21, 2018
This is supposed to be a modernish retelling of Rapunzel. Granted, there is a tower and a girl with blond hair, but that's about it. It's also meant to be a romance but a more unromantic tale the world has never seen - no one likes instalove.
The characters are pretty dull and lifeless - although I did enjoy the friendship dynamic and the 60's boarding school setting certainly had a really lovely ambience.
Some parts had luscious detail whilst others were devoid of emotion, completely irrelevant and convoluted. If you're a fan of instalove or boarding school settings, maybe you'd find this better than mediocre. Too sedate for me.
The characters are pretty dull and lifeless - although I did enjoy the friendship dynamic and the 60's boarding school setting certainly had a really lovely ambience.
Some parts had luscious detail whilst others were devoid of emotion, completely irrelevant and convoluted. If you're a fan of instalove or boarding school settings, maybe you'd find this better than mediocre. Too sedate for me.
December 18, 2012
I'm not sure who this book is for. If, like me, you go into it looking for a retold Sleeping Beauty, you'll be disappointed. It's little more than a hook in the summary, and I doubt I'd spot the parallels if I hadn't been told they were there. The characters are lifeless. There isn't enough historical flavor for fans of historical fiction. It is set in the 60s, but being set at a boarding school makes it somewhat timeless. If you're reading it for the romance... Sorry. I found it entirely unromantic. Aside from being dull and unconvincing, it's also a teacher-student affair that I guess I'm supposed to fall for. I suppose only fans of highly inappropriate insta-love would be at all interested.
June 24, 2024
I think when I bought this, I mistakened it for another story that I had read as a young teen. However, this was not what I was expecting, and I really struggled to finish it. There was nothing wrong with the writing. It's just not my cup of tea.
It's about a young girl at a school falling in love with someone she shouldn't. When the two lovers get caught, their whole life is changed forever.
Megan and Simon are unconvincing and boring. Flat as a surfboard.
It is supposed to be a romance, but it's not much of one, and I am not really fond of the whole student/teacher thing, to be honest.
It's about a young girl at a school falling in love with someone she shouldn't. When the two lovers get caught, their whole life is changed forever.
Megan and Simon are unconvincing and boring. Flat as a surfboard.
It is supposed to be a romance, but it's not much of one, and I am not really fond of the whole student/teacher thing, to be honest.
June 4, 2017
Hey does that girl on the cover look familiar to you? ;)
April 25, 2020
Love it💖
July 13, 2011
Very, very loosely based on the Rapunzel tale - in fact, it's so loosely based on the tale that if I hadn't seen it mentioned elsewhere I don't think I would have gotten the connection. Megan attends an English boarding school in the 1960's where she lives in a tower room with 2 other students. A young male teacher is hired and shortly after his hiring he develops an attachment to Megan. He comes to her tower room for trysts and likes to unbraid her long blond hair and run his hands through it (there's your Rapunzel connection).
I liked that the book was short and a very quick read. I liked the setting. I just didn't really believe the romance and the ending of the book was very unsatisfying. Like the author just got tired and ended it. I know that there are two more books after this one and perhaps they will clear things up, but the book just didn't leave me curious enough about Megan to find out what happens to her in the other two books.
I REALLY disliked the romanticizing of a relationship between a student and a teacher. Yes, they are very similar in ages. BUT, teachers are adults and need to act responsibly. And his actions were not responsible.
I liked that the book was short and a very quick read. I liked the setting. I just didn't really believe the romance and the ending of the book was very unsatisfying. Like the author just got tired and ended it. I know that there are two more books after this one and perhaps they will clear things up, but the book just didn't leave me curious enough about Megan to find out what happens to her in the other two books.
I REALLY disliked the romanticizing of a relationship between a student and a teacher. Yes, they are very similar in ages. BUT, teachers are adults and need to act responsibly. And his actions were not responsible.
December 11, 2010
I hate to complain about any book, but this one disappointed me. It's not that I have a problem with books encouraging couples to wait until they finish school and become older to be togther-I just didn't like the way the book did it. It felt like much was not resolved, and despite too many details in some places, I felt like there were not enough in others.
August 27, 2021
A really nice short book from a series based around famous fairy stories. It is, for me, the best of those, as the characters are more fully realized and better defined. It has a dream-like quality that is very enticing and allows the reader to drift along with the story. Some jars add turbulence but the magic carpet floats on. Very nice.
May 1, 2022
I read this series first as a teenager, and for years I had vague memories of it. Only recently did I find out its name and so I wanted to revisit them. The first is a very, very loose retelling of Rapunzel, without any fantastical elements, and set at a girl's boarding school. I'm quite keen on those settings, and this one delivered on a lot of the boarding school tropes!
The good: I liked the relationship between Bella, Alice & Megan, even if Megan did seem a little cruel to Alice at times. The idea of climbing up the rope of hair being replaced with climbing up scaffold is pretty funny. A lot of the later books' plots (if I remember correctly) are well set-up in this book. The prose was lovely, and I really liked Megan's narration. Oh, and the ending was well-done, I like the final message of the book.
The bad: The major problem I had was how older women were treated. There were quite a few minor characters who escaped this treatment, but by and large they fell into three categories: ugly and wise, ugly and shrewish (and kidding themselves that they could attract anyone!), or pretty and cruel. This is not exactly unexpected in a fairy tale, but if modernising other features, why not that one? Dorothy in particular gets ill-treated, and her ending just...rubbed me up the wrong way. I wasn't sold on her character actually getting to that point over a crush.
The love story, which is fairly central to the story, was also lacking. It's very much "instalove" - which I can sometimes stomach if its then established, but there was no establishing of why they loved each other, apart from physicality. I also kind of hated Simon?! This surprised me, I don't remember disliking him when I was a teen. But the way he talked to Megan creeped me out, especially when he was rude to her or a little manipulative. I can stomach teacher-student relationships in these kinds of contexts (he's only 22 and she's 17, he doesn't actually teach her, it's a fairy-tale setup etc.), but given he doesn't even ask her age until he's already climbed up to her room to make out with her, yeuch. And times when he laughs at her for being silly and it's like, yeah dude, if you date a teenage girl, they might be a little silly.
What I actually think was needed was another 100 pages. That would have given us time with them as a couple and to see their life afterwards, in the present, too, so the ending would have packed a greater punch. As it was, it skated over most of the interesting stuff and instead felt shallow.
A shame, really, as I remembered loving these. I might still try the later two, as they are short and I do really like the writing and the setting. But I will go in with a lot more trepidation than I did this one.
The good: I liked the relationship between Bella, Alice & Megan, even if Megan did seem a little cruel to Alice at times. The idea of climbing up the rope of hair being replaced with climbing up scaffold is pretty funny. A lot of the later books' plots (if I remember correctly) are well set-up in this book. The prose was lovely, and I really liked Megan's narration. Oh, and the ending was well-done, I like the final message of the book.
The bad: The major problem I had was how older women were treated. There were quite a few minor characters who escaped this treatment, but by and large they fell into three categories: ugly and wise, ugly and shrewish (and kidding themselves that they could attract anyone!), or pretty and cruel. This is not exactly unexpected in a fairy tale, but if modernising other features, why not that one? Dorothy in particular gets ill-treated, and her ending just...rubbed me up the wrong way. I wasn't sold on her character actually getting to that point over a crush.
The love story, which is fairly central to the story, was also lacking. It's very much "instalove" - which I can sometimes stomach if its then established, but there was no establishing of why they loved each other, apart from physicality. I also kind of hated Simon?! This surprised me, I don't remember disliking him when I was a teen. But the way he talked to Megan creeped me out, especially when he was rude to her or a little manipulative. I can stomach teacher-student relationships in these kinds of contexts (he's only 22 and she's 17, he doesn't actually teach her, it's a fairy-tale setup etc.), but given he doesn't even ask her age until he's already climbed up to her room to make out with her, yeuch. And times when he laughs at her for being silly and it's like, yeah dude, if you date a teenage girl, they might be a little silly.
What I actually think was needed was another 100 pages. That would have given us time with them as a couple and to see their life afterwards, in the present, too, so the ending would have packed a greater punch. As it was, it skated over most of the interesting stuff and instead felt shallow.
A shame, really, as I remembered loving these. I might still try the later two, as they are short and I do really like the writing and the setting. But I will go in with a lot more trepidation than I did this one.
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May 26, 2026Living there I became a sky-watcher in the same way that other people become bird-watchers. It didn't matter to me what the weather was like. I loved the massed bruse-coloured clouds of a storm, and the high blue dome of summer and the low grey ceiling of rainy November. Best of all I loved the way light left the sky after a full day of sunshine: bleeding out of it slowly before the darkness came"
Adele Geras said in an interview that she wrote her earlier novels in notebooks and read her sentences aloud to see how they sounded. This attention shows in the imagery she creates.
Stories are more than sentence sounds and imagery though. There is the atmosphere. Geras is like Elizabeth Jane Howard in that she has drawn on her own life and experiences at Rowdean in the fictional Egerton Hall. The spirit of the early 1960s in the bed sitting rooms, solitary gas rings and flowered carpets hangs heavily. I think I was expecting something more light hearted, with school lessons and a tower room; like a mixture of Harry Potter and Mallory Towers.
This is not a pleasant fantasy for children. As kitch and clichéd as the scenes with "jolly hockey sticks" and "toasted crumpets" are, there is an innocence of childhood about these stories that is part of their appeal.
In this novel there is ,"something nasty in the woodshed", rather like Jacqueline Wilson combined with 'The L Shaped Room"
There were not enough lighter moments balance the darker ones.
I think that part of the appeal of the Potter books or "The Light Years" (E.J.Howard) or Tolkien is that the reader can imagine themselves in that world, and a part of them would also like to be there with Bertie Wooster or with the students in 'The Secret History'. I wanted no part of Geras's creation. The home sickness of arriving at school;
I caught sight of a huge building, even darker than the dark sky, with rows and rows of lighted windows set into the black. Like topazes lying on black velvet, that's what I said then. What a peculiar child I must have been, but even now I can recall how comforting it was to see that yellow shining out into the night....What else can I remember? My mother's face, very pale, both of us trying hard not to cry"
The bedrooms- "informally spartan. We have candlewick counterpains in shades of pink, blue, yellow or lilac, and curtains with a flower pattern made almost invisible by countless washes, and that's that. Everything else was added by whoever's living in the room: posters, books, photographs of parents, or pets, or (later) boyfriends, and ornaments of all descriptions. There were crazes for things. I remember an especially disgusting statuette of a cat I had, which was supposed to turn blue when it rained and pink when it was fine. Everybody had one at this particular time except (typically) Alice."
What a feeling of relief that Egerton Hal is fictional, and a flinching thought to inhabit it yourself.
This would be better as a memoire and I would have cut out the fantasy elements. It only makes the characters less believable and doesn't add anything.
June 21, 2019
This was supposed to be a retelling of Rapuzel, but it was pretty pathetic. I don't want to read about people who barely know each other and have makeout sessions in the tower room. They call it love, but it's most definitely lust. When the going gets hard their "love" doesn't seem to stick around much. The plot was just dumb.
July 16, 2020
interesting story but hard to keep track of
January 31, 2025
This book is very very boring, she goes on and on about test papers and dorm rooms rather than building relationships it just drones on and on. I will not be completing the series
April 13, 2009
I read all three of the Egerton Hall novels Saturday. They are that short, and they were that easy to read.
"The Tower Room" is a Adéle Geras's retelling of Rapunzel, set in the early sixties in an English boarding school. All three of the novels in this series are tied together, as the three heroines are friends and classmates.
My favorite part of reading various interpretations of fairy tales is finding the well-known pieces of each classic story strewn throughout the new version. I like it better when they're subtle, because it makes me feel smart, heh. They are definitely not subtle in Geras's reworkings, but the read was still enjoyable enough.
It's hard to review one book in the series and not review all of them at once, as they are intertwined in several ways, but "The Tower Room" was probably my least favorite of the three. I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that all the background for the series was set up in this book, which slowed it down quite a bit.
Also, I was hoping the "love at first sight" bit in "The Tower Room" would be an isolated incident, because it just seemed dumb, but no, it repeats itself in all three books. (Is that a spoiler?)
Anyway, yeah, it's a retelling that's a bit ham-fisted and probably better suited for younger readers, but it's likeable enough that I finished it in a couple of hours and moved straight into the next book in the series.
"The Tower Room" is a Adéle Geras's retelling of Rapunzel, set in the early sixties in an English boarding school. All three of the novels in this series are tied together, as the three heroines are friends and classmates.
My favorite part of reading various interpretations of fairy tales is finding the well-known pieces of each classic story strewn throughout the new version. I like it better when they're subtle, because it makes me feel smart, heh. They are definitely not subtle in Geras's reworkings, but the read was still enjoyable enough.
It's hard to review one book in the series and not review all of them at once, as they are intertwined in several ways, but "The Tower Room" was probably my least favorite of the three. I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that all the background for the series was set up in this book, which slowed it down quite a bit.
Also, I was hoping the "love at first sight" bit in "The Tower Room" would be an isolated incident, because it just seemed dumb, but no, it repeats itself in all three books. (Is that a spoiler?)
Anyway, yeah, it's a retelling that's a bit ham-fisted and probably better suited for younger readers, but it's likeable enough that I finished it in a couple of hours and moved straight into the next book in the series.
July 5, 2011
Well, now I've read all three Edgerton Hall fairy tale stories, albeit in the entirely backward order. I have to say, they didn't seem all that inspired to me. The author took fairy tale elements when it was convenient, and often didn't tie them up at the end. It felt like a lot of "ooh, ooh, I recognize that from the original!" without a whole lot of excitement about the book as its own thing.
Plus, and this is a pet peeve of mine, I hate that whole "I don't know you at all, and have in fact only seen you once and from a distance, but it's true luuuuuuuuurve" thing. Especially in a teen novel. All three girls did this, and granted it takes place in the sixties so maybe girls did make choices for the rest of their lives, but it didn't strike me as very romantic and wasn't even a central theme.
Rather than a series of fractured fairy tales, these stories just felt a bit fractured. But hey, they're short. So there's that.
Plus, and this is a pet peeve of mine, I hate that whole "I don't know you at all, and have in fact only seen you once and from a distance, but it's true luuuuuuuuurve" thing. Especially in a teen novel. All three girls did this, and granted it takes place in the sixties so maybe girls did make choices for the rest of their lives, but it didn't strike me as very romantic and wasn't even a central theme.
Rather than a series of fractured fairy tales, these stories just felt a bit fractured. But hey, they're short. So there's that.
March 4, 2009
The Tower Room (Egerton Hall Novel, Book 1) By: Adele Geras. This book is sooooooo crazy!!!!!! This girl named Megan madly falls in love with a dude named Simmon. She is stuck in a huge tower school. Kind of reminds me of the story of snow white in a way. Anyways, this book has a lot of sex in it. I mean ALOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! they both get kicked out of school and she decides to cut her pretty waist-length hair off. (which is sad to me). Anyway, this book is basically about fairy tales. You know how they meet and falls in love, then have sex, and get married. End of the story but in more detailes.
February 14, 2011
I have mixed feelings about this, I loved the first half, one of the most realistic and detailed descriptions of boarding school life I've read, and the characters were appealing, but the second half was a bit of a mess... rushed, forced and without any clear theme or message where there needed to be one. I know it is supposed to be a retelling of Rapunzel, and it stuck pretty close to that in all its rawness, but it would have been a better book if it hadn't bothered with that, and perhaps if it had have been long enough to explore the plot fully and the consequences of Megan's actions. I couldn't help feeling a lovely setting and narrator were wasted on this little paperback.
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March 9, 2009The book The Tower Room is pretty crazy! This girl named Megan madly falls in love with a dude named Simmon. She is stuck in a huge tower school. Kind of reminds me of the story of snow white in a way. This book has A LOT of sex in it. they both get kicked out of school and she decides to cut her pretty waist-length hair off. This book is basically about fairy tales. You know how they meet and falls in love, then have sex, and get married. End of the story but in more detailes, i liked this book even though it was funny/crazy. i think only mature readers should read this book.
June 27, 2009
I have to give Adele Geras props for how skillfully she took the fantastical elements of a fairytale (in this case, Rapunzel) and made them fit a realistic modern setting. Megan is a 17-year-old girl who has only ever known life at an English all-girls boarding school where she shares a tower room with two longtime school friends. And from there you know the plot, which Geras follows with great ingenuity. I was intrigued with that, but I didn't love the characters, I hated their morals, and Geras has made me have a distaste for this particular fairytale!
September 29, 2007
I really enjoyed this book. I love fairy tale retellings, and this is a modern-day take on Rupunzel (well, modern enough - it's set in the 1960s at an all-girls English boarding school). I liked the way the author wrote, it flowed very nicely - it's a short book, so it's naturally quick to read, but the writing made it quite difficult to put down. The characters had distinct personalities, and I liked the three main girls a lot. I'd love to read the other books in this trilogy.
September 24, 2010
Well one of my cousins TEENAGE friend told my cousin a bout the book and recomended my cousin to read it. I guess its okay for 13 and older but not 13 or under. When they went to the library to get the book, I took a peak at it, and totally did not like it. Well it was okay but I didnt like it.:0
March 11, 2022
Lackluster quick read. While the world of Egerton is engaging, Megan herself is not. She's a blank slate with a long plait. Boy meets girl, climbs stuff, kisses her. That's essentially what occurs here. I'm giving it three stars but am unlikely to read it again, given how little happens.
January 31, 2016
In my own personal opinion, the writing style was a bit confusing at first. I eventually understood it of course, but it took me a while. Also, there wasn't much build up to the climax. Things just sort of happened without any exciting build up or anticipation. I was hoping for so much more.
March 12, 2008
Modern version of a classic fairytale.
March 21, 2009
I can never decide if I like this series or not.
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July 20, 2014Retelling of Rapunzel.
May 23, 2009
i thought it was going to be much more thrilling but the only exciting thing was the "affair"
February 23, 2010
a fun retelling of rapunzel that takes place at a boarding school and doesn't involve magic. really quick read. i loved the setting.
April 2, 2010
I found this book rather interesting, but out of the whole trilogy it was the most sedate.
January 11, 2011
Fantastic! Retelling of Rapunzel set in an early 1960's British girls school... Rapunzel rooms with Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. Beautifully written and quite sophisticated for a YA book.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews