UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale, #1) in Once Upon a Time...

Nov 30, 2012 Heidi Garrett rated it really liked it

Shelves: young-adult-fantasy, fairy-tales

UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale) by Chanda Hahn, what a fun, clever read. When I become a fan of a story, there is always that moment when the writer hooks me. In UnEnchanted it is at the red dress. Everything about that scene is the perfect melding of fairytale and real world. And right before we get there, I love this line:

To Sara, vintage meant cheaper than the mall and one step up from a thrift store.

Not that there weren’t some other great moments and lines before then. Two:

Thankfully ...more

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Jul 30, 2012 Kassandra Wilcox rated it it was ok

This book was ok, it would have been slightly better if the author had taken the time to proof-read and run spell check. The idea for the story is interesting but executed in a way that I imagine a twelve year old would do it. The characters are flat and predicatable and the first 3/4 of the book really drag on. The ending was a surprise that I didn't see coming, which was nice since the rest of the story was pretty dull.
Mina is an accident-prone 15 year old who is living a pretty anonymous li ...more

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Nov 04, 2012 R. C. rated it liked it

Shelves: 2012

Check out our fireandicesisters blog for more reviews!

Mina, main character of UnEnchanted, finds out the reason that her family keeps moving from state to state. She is told of her family's Grimm curse and the fact that her father died from trying to beat it. The shock hits her hard but instead continue to run away, she decides that she must stand up and beat the curse in order to protect her little brother, who would have to face it if she died.

Her courage to take on the curse head on was i Check out our fireandicesisters blog for more reviews!

Mina, main character of UnEnchanted, finds out the reason that her family keeps moving from state to state. She is told of her family's Grimm curse and the fact that her father died from trying to beat it. The shock hits her hard but instead continue to run away, she decides that she must stand up and beat the curse in order to protect her little brother, who would have to face it if she died.

Her courage to take on the curse head on was inspiring but really out of character. Her shy appearance that the beginning of the book seems to disappear and all of a sudden she transforms to this valiant warrior who is ready to take on any task at hand. I must say that I was not expecting the instant change and was thoroughly confused by it.

This book had so much potential. I loved the plot and where the story was heading, but the writing was very…..unique. I did not mind the fact that there were some grammar mistakes throughout the book, but what irks me is that the author spelled the main character’s name wrong! It could have been a simple typo but before publishing the book, she should have edited it, because trust me; it needed it!

I only gave 3 stars to the book because I felt that the characters could have been better portrayed. The characters in this story seem really bipolar and most of the time I am confused on what is happening because of their constant mood swings, especially Mina's. Mina goes from desperately begging for help from a stranger that she suddenly feels she can “trust” to downright angry to the same stranger. When reading the story, sometimes I just feel that the characters need to sit down and take a chillpill!

Overall, the book did peak my interest and I encourage everyone to try it out because of the interesting plot that is told, I know I will be reading the second book just to find out how the tale continues. If you don't mind the occasional grammar error, then you might find yourself cozying up in a chair and reading this story in one read!

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Nov 19, 2012 Rebecca rated it it was amazing

When I read the summary on B&N.com I was a little skeptical. It sounded like the plot of the Grimm series on NBC. But it was free, so I downloaded it. It sat in Nook Wonderland for about two months before I decided to read it. After the end I was left wondering why did I not read this earlier?!

Now, I want to be clear on several aspects concerning this wonderful, amazing, brilliant, fantastic novel. Twitter is probably mentioned six dozen times, the tales are not like a Disney movie, it is a YA ...more

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Oct 13, 2012 Marie Deason rated it it was amazing

I have to admit I didn't really expect to enjoy this book so much. A free book for my kindle to check it out. And I did read the reviews and see a lot of complaints about the lack of editing. And yes that can be annoying. But I devoured this book and the sequel. I am really excited for the next book in the series.

The plot line sometimes was a little leading. But I loved fairy tales as a little girl and have an obsession to read retellings of my favorite fairy tales. And it was easy to see with ...more

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Jul 31, 2012 Nicola rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2012-books, challenge-books

What a pleasant surprise this book was. I picked it up as a freebie on the Kindle, and did not really expect much from it. It was refreshing to read a YA that does not contain vampires or werewolves.
I like the fact that Hahn is taking well known stories (folk tales) and using them to create adventure and mystery with young adults. Mina Grime, a descendant of Wilhelm Grimm, from Grimm's folktales, is thrown into a magical world in which she must complete the STORY in order to free her family, par ...more

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Oct 22, 2012 Momo (the Mome Rath) rated it it was ok

Shelves: retelling, reviewed, faeries, self-pub, pub-2011, urban-fantasy

The idea for Unenchanted itself is amazing and I can honestly say I was sucked in for most of the book. However, I almost want to steer anyone planning on reading away as the hiccups in this one were pretty bad. In YA literature, there are many great fairy tale retellings, so I can’t recommend a book that I struggled through at points when there are so many others that I whole-heartedly enjoyed to the last word.

What I did like about Mina was that she did seem like a teenager. Her voice actually The idea for Unenchanted itself is amazing and I can honestly say I was sucked in for most of the book. However, I almost want to steer anyone planning on reading away as the hiccups in this one were pretty bad. In YA literature, there are many great fairy tale retellings, so I can’t recommend a book that I struggled through at points when there are so many others that I whole-heartedly enjoyed to the last word.

What I did like about Mina was that she did seem like a teenager. Her voice actually felt like that of a young girl. Other than that, Mina was not particularly likeable. She was your typical “normal” young adult main character, made complete with shyness and an inferiority complex. If you’re looking for a strong heroine kicking Grimm-fairy-tale-ass and taking names, look elsewhere. Mina was borderline whiney at times and grated on my nerves.

Most of the dialogue was atrocious. It wasn’t that it wasn’t authentic for a teenager, it wasn’t authentic for anyone. No one talks like that. The only character whose dialogue sounded like a real person was Mina’s best friend, Nan. Nan had more personality than the rest of the cast of characters combined and was incredibly likeable. Unfortunately, Nan is not the main character.

But the most upsetting thing about Unenchanted was the amount of typos. There were misspelled words, words missing, and other issues on top of that. This is completely unacceptable in a published book, self published or otherwise. If you’re going to publish a book, it should be something you poured your heart into and have gone over repeatedly. Clearly, the author put absolutely no time into editing her book.

Nevertheless, I am still intrigued with where this is going as Unenchanted did have an interesting and original plot. I probably will pick up the Chandra Hahn’s next book in the series. I guess this makes it a mixed up review...at first I'm like "Don't read it!" and then "I'm gonna read the sequel." What I mean is: Unenchanted is flawed, but the story is original and interesting. Read at your own risk.

I want to give it a 2.5, but GoodReads won't let me :( Or maybe it was deserving of a full 3 stars. I still don't know

Originally posted on my blog Where the Mome Raths Outgrabe ...more

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Jul 18, 2012 Resa rated it it was amazing

Shelves: own-kindle

I honesty wasn't sure about this book when I got it. It seemed interesting but I had been disappointed in most books that I had thought seemed interesting from the back synopsis. I ended up loving this book. I finished it in a day. That included studying for finals and going to a friends music recital. It was an amazing book though I wasn't too fond of the ending. But I also really liked the ending because it wasn't happy ever after. It was a really good book, the characters were really good. I ...more

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Aug 20, 2012 Holly rated it liked it

Love fairy tales. So, I was totally excited about this one.

The Good: Cool premise. Fun, quick read. Great plot twist at the end!

The Bad: The characters feel like the came out of Twilight... which is NOT a good thing. And this is a book about fairy tales. So where are they? There's only two!

Will I read the sequel? Yep. ...more

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Nov 18, 2012 Renate rated it did not like it

Shelves: fairy-tale-inspired-retold

To be perfectly honest, I couldn't even bring myself to finish this book. The premise is cool, and I love fairy tale re-tellings, but the grammer was atrocious, and though I tried to look past the mis-spelled words and ubiquitous grammatical errors, when the (not a word) word "maked" appeared, I just couldn't. The viewpoint changes without warning early on, and the character voices are so underdeveloped and indistinguishable it took me several confusing paragraphs to figure out that we were now ...more

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Jul 16, 2012 Michelle rated it it was amazing

This is by far one of my most favorite, fairy tale retellings ever. This book doesn't just pick out one tale to retell and make its own, but it retells all of the Grimm tales, in a new and fresh way. Poor Mina must live thru these tails completing them all to break the curse. But can she do it? Mina is strong and proud, smarter than people give her credit to be. I believe in Mina and I believe she will complete all of the Grimm Fae Tales and save her little brother Charlie from suffering their f ...more

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Feb 15, 2013 Mary rated it liked it

A really different take on the Grimm brother's story. I like it enough to read the next book, so we'll see. ...more

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Aug 03, 2012 Tasia Berry rated it it was amazing

I really enjoyed this twist on the grimm brothers story. Excited to read more

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Aug 10, 2012 Barbara Folk rated it really liked it

A great retelling... I love how she mingled all of the stories together in one.

There are a few odd grammatical issues, but overall I loved it.

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Sep 03, 2012 Amanda rated it it was amazing

Shelves: kindle

I loved this one!! cant wait to read the next one. I read this in less than 24 hours

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Dec 13, 2012 Shantyl rated it really liked it

Shelves: kindle-books

i really liked the idea of this plot and overall the book was good. my brain just kinda got confused a lot because the narrator kept switching. she wouldnt stay on mina or brody or jarod or sara or nan it just kinda skipped around point of view. i would have liked some kind of signal that the story was switching to someones train of thought. it was just all over the place. BUT if you can overlook that and stick with the story then it turns out pretty good and creative. the writing is a little fl ...more

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Sep 03, 2012 Leylan rated it really liked it

Love it. Very simple but with a good twist in the fairy tales.

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Jul 30, 2012 Shayna Varadeaux rated it it was amazing

This book took some getting into and when I did I really did enjoy it. It would have gotten 5 stars if the start wasn't hard for me to get into. :) ...more

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