Kirkus Reviews
A contemporary retelling of "Rapunzel" overcomes a somewhat connect-the-dots feel with its gentle, spirited heroine. The tale is told in two voices: Rachel's, the blonde girl in the tower, and Wyatt's, a boy with a secret sorrow. Wyatt has been sent to upstate New York to stay with the mother of an old friend of his mom's, Mrs. Greenwood, to heal from something readers don't learn about until halfway through the story. Meanwhile Rachel, who loves the woman she calls "Mama" although she knows her real mother is dead, begins to chafe against her confinement and her loneliness, although Mama visits her each day with food, books and art supplies. Wyatt finds the diary of Mrs. Greenwood's daughter Danielle, presumed long-dead, and begins to tie together strands that include missing teens, drug addiction, demon lovers and tears that heal. Flinn's "towering" achievement here is Rachel. She makes readers believe in a character educated only on books brought to her and who has not been outside in years. Readers will understand how she reacts as she does to a cellphone, to walking in snow and to hair that grows so fast she can see it, and they will find her both intelligent and resourceful. Rachel and Wyatt's romantic encounters are tender and utterly implicit. Readers may pick it up for the reimagined fairy tale, but they'll remember it for Rachel. (Fantasy. 12-18)
Children's Literature
- Judy Crowder
Take three compelling characters, throw in ghost sightings, some Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Jane Austin, Dickens, Rapunzel, a cold, dreary landscape and a half-ruined tower that only a few people can see and you'll have one of the most suspenseful young adult novels that has come along in a long time. Flinn's compelling tale begins with Rachel, who has been isolated in a tower most of her life and is visited by a lady called, "Mamma." She spends her days singing and dealing with her long blonde hair, hoping for a hero like the ones in her well-thumbed books to save her from her isolation and tell her who she really is. Danielle's voice is only heard through a long-abandoned journal, an ancient yearbook picture and an old letter left in the pocket of a coat, plus in the memories of an old woman. Wyatt, sent by his mother to stay with an old lady in the Adirondacks wonders if life will ever be the same after experiencing a horrible tragedy. He experiences a ghostly visitor in a scene only Emily Bronte could devise. He also hears singing in the frozen woods, but where is it coming from? Why can't everyone hear it? What's behind the missing people in this small town? Why does Danielle's journal end so abruptly? Wyatt discovers why he is one of the few that can see the tower in the woods but this knowledge doesn't make his new life any easier. Haunted by the death of his best friend, Tyler, confused by the mysteries in this small town, Wyatt doesn't know whom to believe or who should be saving whom. This is a book that readers will not be able to put down, and will ponder long after they've finished the epilogue. Here's hoping that readers will also be inspired by this masterfully-crafted book to read novels penned by Charlotte and Emily Bronte, two of history's finest writers. Reviewer: Judy Crowder
