The Land of Stories: The Enchantress Returns by Chris Colfer (Book Review)

The Land of Stories

The Enchantress Returns

by Chris Colfer

517 pages

Little Brown, August 2013

young adult / fiction

Read in 4 days

Rating: ★★★★

Amazon.com | BN.com

"The East was in a period of great celebration."

Review: Before I get into the positives about this book, I would like to start with what I hated about it. Now, I read and reviewed the first book last year so my memory on how it was written is a bit on the hazy side. One thing I don't recall it doing is bothering me when it came to the dialogue. Perhaps I'm wrong in this but I felt the parts where it says "he said" or "she said" was coming WAY too often without any real description behind them. I was looking for a "he answered" or "she replied" or "she screamed"?! Anything other than the word "said" would have sufficed. Especially in places where it's obvious who is talking. If you start a paragraph with describing what a particular character it doing then it stands to reason that whatever spoken sentences to follow in that same paragraph are being uttered by that character!! Now I understand this is a book for a younger audience but what they are able to understand and comprehend is far more intelligent than the way this book was written. The whole time I kept asking myself if ANYONE bothered to edit this book before putting it to press? There were a lot of grammatical and structural mistakes like that, for me, throughout the book. It got so bad that I was rewording sentences as I went along so I wouldn't give myself a headache!

But, on a good note, I found the way the different fairy tale character story lines were woven together to create the Land of Stories ingenious. I must give Chris Colfer credit for coming up with some great ideas and structure that not only works but makes sense.

Alex and Conner are back in this sequel, to stop the evil Enchantress, who's come back for revenge against the entire world for wronging her they way they did in the past. I don't want to give anything away of the story but all the usual character tales are back: Red Riding Hood, Jack, Goldilocks, Froggy (aka Charles), the Harp, the Fairy Godmother, and anyone else you can think of. Oh, and Rumplestiltskin plays a big part in this book as well.

***SPOILER ALERT***

I found it very cool the way he was made the eighth dwarf!

***END OF SPOILER***

I enjoyed it and will continue reading the rest of the installments, I just hope the writing style gets MUCH better by the third one. Oh, and quit it with all the crying! Sheesh! lol

Summary: After decades of hiding, the evil Enchantress who cursed Sleeping Beauty is back with a vengeance. Alex and Conner Bailey have not been back to the magical Land of Stories since their adventures in The Wishing Spell ended. But one night, they learn the famed Enchantress has kidnapped their mother! Against the will of their grandmother, the twins must find their own way into the Land of Stories to rescue their mother and save the fairy tale world from the greatest threat it's ever faced.

To learn more about The Land of Stories please visit this site here.

The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer (Book Review)

The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell

by Chris Colfer

438 pages

Little Brown Books, July 2012

fairy tale/fantasy/magic

Read In: 3 ½ days

Another Review…

My Rating: ★★★★

Amazon.com or BN.com

My Review: Even though this book is geared towards young adults ranging from 8 - 12 years old, I read this 400+ page book for two reasons: 1. Chris Colfer wrote it & 2. Who doesn’t like a good fairy tale? You’re never too old to read fairy tales.

I found this book to be rather inventive. How he was able to intertwine all those fairy tales and still manage to leave himself room for several follow-up books in this made-for trilogy opener. While I feel the editing could have gone a bit deeper than I imagine it did considering it was left at over 400 pages! Then again, after Harry Potter I suppose there is no reason to shorten a book meant to be read by a younger audience. These kids devour books so quickly now!

The twins and main characters of the story are believable in their dialogue, except for the range of emotions the female character, Alex, goes through. I can’t say I remember what it was like when I was 12 but this girl would tear up over the littlest thing! The brother - sister relationship was spot on and I found a little bit of myself in each other them. There were lessons to be learned, as with any good fairy tale, and morals to be remembered. All in all, it’s a book any parent could and should read with their child and discuss as they go along.

I hear rumors of a possible movie being made out of this book? If so, I hope it’s completely animated. Some things are better depicted drawn and come off too corny when you take a children’s book and portray it with real people. Or if not completely then let it start with real people and when they fall into the book they become animated, like The Page Master or Rock-a-doodle.

Synopsis: Alex and Conner Bailey’s world is about to change, in this fast-paced adventure that uniquely combines our modern day world with the enchanting realm of classic fairy tales.

The Land of Stories tells the tale of twins Alex and Conner. Through the mysterious powers of a cherished book of stories, they leave their world behind and find themselves in a foreign land full of wonder and magic where they come face-to-face with the fairy tale characters they grew up reading about.

But after a series of encounters with witches, wolves, goblins, and trolls alike, getting back home is going to be harder than they thought.