Review Detail

I am sure everyone has seen the movie Beastly, but I am also sure that many people do not know about the book that started the movie. That book was written by the same author of this book, Alex Flinn. Alex clearly has a wide imagination and her fairytale retellings are astounding works of art that bring the stories generations of children grew up knowing and turning them into a modern day mystical read the likes of which we have never seen before.

Such is the case with Towering.

This book opens on a girl, Rachel, trapped in a tower. The only thing she knows of the world is what she has learned within the pages of her books. She knows nothing of the outside world except that there are dangerous men who with to harm. Rachel's only companion is woman she called Mama who is not actually her mother at all since her mother was killed by the men Rachel is not running from. Eventually she starts to dream about a mysterious boy with green eyes who will rescue her and free her from her tower.

Wyatt came to Slakkill to avoid his past. He has faced a great tragedy that has completely wracked his world and caused him to question his mere existence. He moves in with an elderly lady named Mrs. Greenwood and hopes that the quiet of this desolate town will give him a fresh outlook on life. However, this slow town is anything but. He encounters dreamland ghosts and hears soft singing that no one else seems able to hear. With curiosity peaked, he sets out to find the source of the weirdness he is encountering.

Wyatt and Rachel enter into an unusual romance of a captive girl with fast growing hair and a emotionally dead boy. Between them they seek to set themselves free from the chains that bind them and they know that they are the only two that can help the other.

This book was a retelling of sorts I have never seen. It stuck to the core of the story of Repunzel but elaborated on it and set it in modern time. Does a girl with ever growing hair living in a town seem plausible? No, but fantasy books are not MEANT to be plausible. They are meant to be thrilling, riveting, and fun. Mission accomplished.

The romance between Wyatt and Rachel was a bit hard to swallow. I love a good romance, but I have noticed in a lot of the books I have read recently, these grand confessions of love. It's a bit tedious. I can only hear "I loved you from the first moment I saw you. You're so beautiful. You complete me. I can't live without you" so many times before it just feels forced. While the romance aspect of the book seemed a bit... sappy, I enjoyed the book anyway. But then again, I enjoy everything I read by Alex Flinn. She is a master of fairytales that would rival Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm.

Towering is a story of captivity of the soul as well as the body. It is a book that brings it's reader back to the childhood tale of Repunzel they grew up knowing and brings it to the present. Towering is a must read for fairytale buffs everywhere.

Review Posted on: http://www.ladybugliterature.blogspot.com