Review Detail

I love a good fairytale retelling. While My Fair Godmother wasn’t the best I’ve read in the genre, it was cute enough. The author, Janette Rallison, did a nice enough job bringing a few new elements to some classic fairy tales.

The story starts off in modern day Virginia with the sisters Jane and Savannah and their shared loved interest Hunter. I thought the story was going to stay in the modern setting, but that was quickly corrected. The Fair Godmother (“Chrissy”) seemed to muck things up when she kept sending Savannah into various fairy tales set in medieval times. You see, Chrissy isn’t very good at her job. She didn’t pay much attention in fairy godmother school so her grades barely scraped by. She spends more time playing around with her friends and shopping than she does listening to her charges. You can imagine how that could cause some problems in the magic department.

The characters were so-so in My Fair Godmother. Jane and Hunter didn’t offer much to the plot other than the initial conflict. The majority of the story focused on Savannah and Tristan. Savannah was being pulled through various fairy tales because she wanted a “prince” to take her to prom. While that was going on, Chrissy was scoping out Tristan. Somehow along the way she thought it would be best if Tristan became an actual prince, and so he was sucked into the Middle Ages. I will say that when Savannah decided to go help rescue him, that made the story more interesting. There were plenty of action points and hidden twists to keep things lively while the characters were in the Middle Ages.

The intermittent “memos” from what I think was the Fairy Council was a bit confusing at first. I see their purpose, but it was a bit annoying. There were too many points of view telling the same story. It was Savannah’s story, but the letters offered insight from at least three other characters. For younger readers, that might be a little confusing to follow.