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Reckless

By Cornelia Funke

Prince Charming never made it to Sleeping Beauty.  Her skeleton is still lying in her bed.  A strand of Rapunzel's hair is a rope that is any length the holder wants.  The tailor is a monster that kills humans and then makes his clothes out of their skin.  Things on the other side of the mirror are darker than they seem.  But Jacob Reckless doesn't worry about these most of the time -- occasionally they do become problematic.  Jacob doesn't consider his dad as being his father because he hasn't seen him in years.  Jacob escapes the normal world to the world on the other side of the mirror with increasing frequency until one time his brother, Will, follows him.  By the time Will followed him, Jacob was a well known treasure hunter which has made him many friends and enemies.  Just one moment of carelessness and Will's life may never be the same.  The Dark Fairy curses many people who oppose the Goyl.  The curse turns these humans into Goyl; their skin, heart, and memory into stone.  Will is slowly turning into stone.  Jacob, who has spent his life hiding from fear, finds himself facing the scariest thing he can imagine.   Jacob, his shapeshifting friend named Fox, and Will's girlfriend, Clara, are willing to do anything to save Will.  But, Kami'en, the Goyl King, wants Will as a Goyl because his skin isn't becoming Onyx or Jasper, it's becoming Jade.

Jacob was hard to get used because he didn't seem to feel anything but anger and self doubt for a while.  Once he started showing more emotion the book picked up and improved a lot.  The plot was very compelling and the characters were very interesting.  The twisted fairy tale's helping make the mirror world more interesting and dark.  This book was like a sour lemon tart that I thought was going to be my grandmother's recipe.  It was hard to take at the beginning and I didn't really want to finish.  It wasn't what I liked and didn't intend on liking but I decided to take a second bite and once I got into the book it was much much better. This book is a 3.7 because it was hard to get used to but ended up being captivating.

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