Water Song in Into the Forest

Sep 16, 2009 Cara rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, fairy-tales, fantasy

First off before going in you must know that this retelling is loosely based on the original tale. I thought this was a plus because personally I never was really fond of the original. Really how romantic can a real frog be?

The book is set during WWI and I love how Suzanne Weyn does her retellings with a historic backdrop. It adds realism to the tale. I've also noticed that Weyn seems to like adding lots of languages and accents to her stories, which add more of a cultural effect to them. So we First off before going in you must know that this retelling is loosely based on the original tale. I thought this was a plus because personally I never was really fond of the original. Really how romantic can a real frog be?

The book is set during WWI and I love how Suzanne Weyn does her retellings with a historic backdrop. It adds realism to the tale. I've also noticed that Weyn seems to like adding lots of languages and accents to her stories, which add more of a cultural effect to them. So we have our frog prince who is the most lovable Jack, and the strong minded Emma. For such a little book she packed a lot of action. Don't get me wrong it's not action packed like a thriller, but for a fairy tale it kept the plot rolling. I appreciated that in this one we got to see the relationship between Emma and Jack grow. It's not "oh I just realized that we are beautiful and we should totally be together!" It had a lot more of a real footing in the love they will eventually have for each other. At first they both are kind of wary of each other; not sure what the other is thinking. They have the age old assumptions of each other. She thinking he was uneducated and rough, and he thought she believed she was too good for him because of her wealth. It was kind of funny because sometimes they were right.

I want to spend the rest of the review singing praises over Jack, but I won't do that. Maybe I should create my own Ode to Jack later. I'll make copies for anyone who wants one:) He is just the perfect all American southern boy. Nuff' said. I was kind of disappointed when I found out what the locket had, though it did have a symbolic meaning. I thought it could have been more original. At times I was confused, well not confused but questioning why they decided to do certain things. The ending is so sweet though and makes up for it completely.

Best quality of the book (instead of Jack of course) was that both the main characters had strong values, which I thought should be applauded.
Simply a lovely story.
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