Kendra Chronicles #4 Beheld by Alex Flinn

Presenting Kendra Chronicles #4 Beheld by Alex Flinn.

Here is the summary of the book:

#1 New York Times bestselling YA author Alex Flinn is back with magical twists on four fairy-tale favorites, each featuring a little help from Kendra, the witch from Beastly, as she searches through cities and centuries for her lost love.

Being a powerful witch, Kendra has survived it all. Since she first beheld James over three hundred years ago, Kendra has tangled with witch hunters and wolves, helped a miller’s daughter spin straw into gold, cowered in London as German bombs fell, and lived through who knows how many shipwrecks. But her powers have limits, and immortality can be lonely. Kendra isn’t ready to stop searching for the warlock she had met centuries ago.

With the help of her magic mirror, Kendra will travel the world to reconnect with her lost love—and, of course, she can’t help but play a hand in a few more stories along the way.

Featuring retellings of favorite fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, Rumpelstiltskin, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, and The Ugly Duckling, Alex Flinn’s latest young adult novel, Beheld, is fresh fairy-tale fun from beginning to end.

REVIEW ==

It is a concurrent  theme among fairytales and some-such that be it an enchantress, a fairy godmother or the supportive witches in general never get much space for their stories to be told. Exceptions have always been there but never do you see the good witch ever be the protagonist of the tale. 

Beheld by Alex Flinn in that regard is definitely something new and something different. Definitely a good different. Following the same format set in a previous novel of the series Bewitching. It began with Beastly and finally comes this book that shines a big light on Kendra, the fairy godmother and explains her story in full. I definitely like the tale all the more for that. 

Of course a fairy godmother is never without her charges really and that is definitely true as we see snipers of Red Riding Hood, Rumpelstiltskin, The Ugly Duckling and East of the Sun and West of the Moon..... But she deserves her happy ever after too and Beheld holds that for her. Most of all Beheld promises and delivers on a well balanced plot and some very innovative characters in the mix. 

"Magical and insightful and just fairytale-like"

Genre :     Young Adult, Romance, Fairytale re-telling

Publisher: Harper Teen

Release Date: 10th January, 2017

My Copy: publisher & edelweiss

Rate:             4/5 (Really Liked it)

Buy:         Amazon | Book Depository 

Mirrored

Presenting Mirrored by Alex Flinn.

Here is the summary of the book:

A modern, multi-generational tale of Kendra, the witch from "Snow White," who trains Violet, an ugly, lonely, and heartbroken girl in the 1980s who transforms herself into "the fairest one of all" but still cannot win Greg's heart, and Celine, Greg's daughter with Violet's high school rival, Jennifer.

Alex Flinn returns with yet another fairytale re-telling. This time it is 'Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs' spanning across generations. The YA genre is rife with numerous best selling titles in the re-tellings category. Some veer to extremes, some portray 'what ifs' and then there is Alex Flinn whose particular brand of re-telling comes fairly grounded in its origins, set within modern twists. Mirrored is one such tale with a gorgeous cover and an equally delightful story.

Don't judge a book by its cover, meant in the most intangible sense. This is the story of Violet and Celine. Violet is the step-mother and Celine, the Snow White of the story. Added modernity to the mix, these two in their own ages have been bullying victims. But what matters is how you deal with what was done to you. Where Violet chose bitter vengeance, Celine chose to look past it all. And Goose ..... he was just the sweetest guy in the short size.

Everyone of the characters gets their own voice in this story and they all play their role perfectly. You just can't help but sympathize with Violet but you also don't agree with her going to the dark side. Celine plays on our emotions perfectly. She is smart, good and (tries) to see good in everyone. The rollicking emotional twists and hi-jinks makes this a perfect re-telling because really I finished it in one sitting so you can see that I was invested in what was going on here.

But it felt a bit too simple. In a world where tv shows like Once Upon A Time exists it is pretty hard to measure up to its caliber because at the base of it, that show is a Snow White re-telling (foremost) with the add-on's and a good one too so sadly Mirrored gets 2 stars less from me.

"A subtle and sweet re-telling of Snow White and the Evil Queen"

Genre :      Young Adult, Paranormal, Romance, Fairy tale re-telling

Publisher: HarperTeen

Release Date: 15th September, 2015

My Copy: publisher & edelweiss

Rate:              3/5 (Liked It)

Other Books by the author (review links):
                Beastly 
                Towering 
                Bewitching: The Kendra Chronicles

Buy:           Amazon | Book Depository 

Bewitching: The Kendra Chronicles

Presenting Bewitching: The Kendra Chronicles by Alex Flinn.

Here is the summary of the book:

Bewitching can be a beast. . . .

Once, I put a curse on a beastly and arrogant high school boy. That one turned out all right. Others didn’t.

I go to a new school now—one where no one knows that I should have graduated long ago. I’m not still here because I’m stupid; I just don’t age.

You see, I’m immortal. And I pretty much know everything after hundreds of years—except for when to take my powers and butt out.

I want to help, but things just go awry in ways I could never predict. Like when I tried to free some children from a gingerbread house and ended up being hanged. After I came back from the dead (immortal, remember?), I tried to play matchmaker for a French prince and ended up banished from France forever. And that little mermaid I found in theTitanic lifeboat? I don’t even want to think about it.

Now a girl named Emma needs me. I probably shouldn’t get involved, but her gorgeous stepsister is conniving to the core. I think I have just the thing to fix that girl—and it isn’t an enchanted pumpkin. Although you never know what will happen when I start . . . bewitching.

The Fairytale re-imagination genre of fiction has truly become the genres of the decade.... Well into that matter i implore that you look no further than Alex Flinn. And this time its 'Cinderella' with a modern twist for 'Bewitching'. We are introduced to Emma the stepsister, Lisette the Cinderella and of course Kendra the helpful witch is too.

Bewitching tells the story through Kendra, playing on the concept of 'what if' things didn't happen like how the stories tell us it did. 'What if' the step sister was the good girl and Cinderella the manipulative one. 'What if' the mermaid tale didn't happen as the stories say, and 'what if' the witch only wanted to help but it always backfired. Bewitching is truly a bewitching tale of such measures.

With stories within a story we see Cinderalla with an Alex Flinn twist. She simply implements the story in her own unique way. With her easy penmanship Flinn always delights us with her imaginative repertoire and Bewitching is no exception. While the story-within-story part did unnerve me a bit, I particularly enjoyed reading about Emma (of course she was my favorite) and Lisette. And the way Kendra played a role in their life and for the latter to gain an actual sincere friend out of this madness in Emma.

"Cinderella Alex Flinn style. Brilliant"

Genre :      Young Adult, Paranormal, Romance, Fairy tale re-telling

Publisher: HarperTeen

Release Date: 14th February, 2012

My Copy: bought (ebook)

Rate:              4/5 (Really Liked It)

Other Books by the author (review links):
                Beastly 
                Towering

Buy:           Amazon | Book Depository 

Towering

As impressive as the other books of Flinn. Presenting Towering by Alex Flinn.

Here is the summary of the book:

At first, I merely saw his face, his hands on the window ledge. Then, his whole body as he swung himself through the window. Only I could not see what he swung on.
Until, one day, I told my dream self to look down. And it was then that I saw. He had climbed on a rope. I knew without asking that the rope had been one of my own tying.

Rachel is trapped in a tower, held hostage by a woman she’s always called Mama. Her golden hair is growing rapidly, and to pass the time, she watches the snow fall and sings songs from her childhood, hoping someone, anyone, will hear her.

Wyatt needs time to reflect or, better yet, forget about what happened to his best friend, Tyler. That’s why he’s been shipped off to the Adirondacks in the dead of winter to live with the oldest lady in town. Either that, or no one he knows ever wants to see him again.

Dani disappeared seventeen years ago without a trace, but she left behind a journal that’s never been read, not even by her overbearing mother…until now.

A #1 New York Times bestselling author, Alex Flinn knows her fairy tales, and Towering is her most mind-bending interpretation yet. Dark and mysterious, this reimagining of Rapunzel will have readers on the edge of their seats wondering where Alex will take them next!

Technically Book 3 of the Kendra Chronicles but can be treated as standalone nonetheless. I'm sure the cover is self-explanatory nonetheless. Rapunzel. This is a modern day Rapunzel. And Ms. Flinn has made it a tale of the ages. Granted i've not read Bewitching yet but this is another good fairy-tale re-telling that makes the list.

Rachel's been locked up all her life in her tower as long as she has known with just her mama, her song and her book. And golden hair that grows so fast that it needs cutting weekly. Singing songs from her childhood hoping someone would come up and rescue her from her lonely existence. Naive, pure, innocent and ethereal, words that define our Rapunzel of this story perfectly..... still not the damsel in distress though.

Wyatt comes to live in that almost scarce town to escape the tragic experience of his home town moving in with a Mrs. Greenwood. A friend of his mother. There, Wyatt gets entangled in another mystery, of the disappearance of her daughter, Danielle. With just a dairy for clue, the spooky climate and the odd singing in the air that only Wyatt could hear, this is a stay he is so not going to forget as he and Rachel find their way to one another and discover the mystery shrouded in the mists of the desolate town.

There is nothing more that can be said and I'm not going to spoil this story but Ms. Flinn is sure the maestro of modern fairytale re-tellings. Its as modern as can be and yet retaining the characteristics of the classic tale with the twists and turns giving it its fresh spin.

"Towering is a classic, fresh, a quick read and truly beautiful in its innocence.... Brava Ms. Flinn. Brava"

Genre :      Young Adult, Paranormal Romance, Fairytale Re-telling


Publisher: HarperTeen


My Copy:  Publisher and edelweiss


Rate:              5/5 (It was Amazing)

Beastly

I could feel everyone looking at me, but I was used to it.

It was on the internet about a new movie named Beastly, starring Vanessa Hudgens and Alex Pettyfer(who on a side note i would like to say would be a great Jace for the Mortal Instruments series movies). The descriptions everywhere said that the movie is a modern re-telling of the age old fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, a YA book. At the time when I watched the trailer I had no notion that it was actually a book that was being made into a motion picture. It was actually on a goodreads.com book of month poll in one the reader groups that I came across the book. So I went an got the book and it was actually very good. A really enjoyable book.

As the Summary of the book goes,

Kyle Kingsbury is a gorgeous high school freshman, spoiled rotten by his famous anchorman father, a man who’d rather dole out cash than affection. Kyle attends the exclusive Tuttle School in New York City and torments those poor unfortunates who lack his looks and wealth. When he humiliates a girl at school, she transforms him into a horrific-looking creature. Kyle’s only hope for breaking the spell lies in finding true love-as he reports online in meetings of the Unexpected Changes chat group (other members include Froggie and the mermaid Silent Maid).

Beastly as I had already stated above is a modern day retelling of the fairytale “Beauty and the Beast.” Kyle Kingsbury is a sixteen-year-old at a private high school. He’s everything that every girl wants, and every guy wants to be: rich, gorgeous, charismatic. When he plays a nasty prank on an ugly girl at school, he gets the shock of a lifetime when he discovers that she is a witch. She puts a curse on him, making him as beastly on the outside as he is on the inside. He has two years to break the curse, two years in which he must find a girl who will look beyond his horrible exterior and love him.

Alex Flinn has taken the typical tale we all know so well, and dolled it with wonderful characters and the story of a shallow young man finding out that there is more to life than beauty and money, that there is value in kindness and intelligence and self-sacrifice. Kyle’s transformation goes so much deeper than his change on the outside. He is helped along the path by his blind tutor, Will, and his housekeeper, Magda. They show him how to love unconditionally, how to become a person that a girl may find worthy of love.

The contemporary style of the novel was definitely up to the mark and the modern dialogue delivery was perfectly done. and that it was from the Beast’s point of view. Kyle really does change from a beastly rich boy (Kendra, the witch who curses him, calls him this the first time he’s mean to her) into a smart young man who can love someone other than his own reflection. I liked the fact that Lindy, his “Belle,” isn’t actually a Beauty - she’s just a normal girl. The online chat group (run by a “Mr. Anderson”) was a neat touch. I think the thought that you could find a chat group for even magical changes in this day and age is rather an enchanting thought.

Flinn captures the cocky male adolescent voice really well. The meanness is there. The sex obsession is there, but we’re not forced to read about it, making it appropriate for young readers. (When Kyle has sex with the rich chick, it goes on behind closed doors, so we just read that it happened, not the play-by-play.)

And she does a terrific job working the fairy tale into modern life. How she handles the rich father, the witch, the girl whose dad easily trades her for his freedom, the roses, the mirror, the servant, and the benefits for the others in the “castle,” etc. are all skillfully worked in. I can’t see that she misses anything at all. Flinn even includes fun little interludes of internet group counseling with other “transformed” creatures: the little mermaid, Snow White and Rose Red, the Frog Prince.

Above all the retelling business is that it is all believable - loved the believable way she showed us Kyle changing, transforming. And of course there’s the wonderful blooming of true love. All this adds up to a truly delightful book that I hope will become wildly popular with teens. The book does a solid job of giving us a fresh perspective to the original in keeping with the drama and the element of intrigue high.

At the heart of it, the tale of the beauty and the beast goes back hundreds of years. But people understood the effects of testosterone long before anyone had a clue what hormones were or what they did. Hormones haven’t changed, so human nature hasn’t. That’s why the story still works today. Even the girl Flinn puts in the story to save the Beast, although he overlooks her at first because she wears unstylish clothing, turns out to have a hot figure as soon as he sees her dressed up.

The Magic is real and it is there, but tis a modern setting. And even though the story was predictable, how could it not be? I was turning the pages faster and faster as I came to the end. This is a wonderful re-imagining of a tale that has much to teach us about what true beauty is.

And any adults, who will admit to enjoying Twilight, let me urge you to give Beastly a try, as well as those who love to read YA and fairytales.      

Genre :      Fiction, Young Adult, Fairy tale remake


Publisher:  HarperTeen


Rate:              5/5 (It was amazing)