Review: East, by Edith Pattou

East
By Edith Pattou
Publication Date: September 1st, 203 (Harcourt Children's Books)
Hardcover, 498 pages
Genre: Fantasy; Fairy Tale; Retelling; Romance; Adventure; YA
Source: Library (Reed Memorial)

DESCRIPTION:

A magical epic of love, betrayal, and loss.

Rose is the youngest of seven children, meant to replace her dead sister.

Maybe because of that, she's never really fit in. She's always felt different, out of place, a restless wanderer in a family of homebodies. So when an enormous white bear mysteriously shows up and asks her to come away with it —in exchange for health and prosperity for her ailing family—she readily agrees. 

Rose travels on the bear's broad back to a distant and empty castle, where she is nightly joined by a mysterious stranger. In discovering his identity, she loses her heart—and finds her purpose—and realizes her journey has only just begun.

As familiar and moving as Beauty and the Beast, yet as fresh and original as only the best fantasy can be, East is a bold retelling of the classic tale "East of the Sun and West of the Moon," a sweeping story of grand proportions.

—from the book's dust jacket

REVIEW:

If you don't read East, by Edith Pattou, you're not missing out on anything.

I knew I probably wouldn't like it by page 25, but I kept at it anyway. I even followed my Fiftieth-Page Rule, the one where "giving a book a fair chance" means reading fifty pages in, then deciding if I want to stop reading it. But I kept reading past the fiftieth page, so the book must be doing something right.

(By the way, here is a link to the original Norwegian fairy tale, "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" if you want to read it.)

First, East is written in first-person, but the views alternate between Rose, Neddy (Rose's older brother), Father (Rose's father), Troll Queen, and White Bear. I don't have a point-of-view preference, so I didn't mind the alternating view points.

The main character, Rose, was so foolish the majority of the time, it made me want to pull my hair out. Her foolishness seemed to clash with her admirable intelligence, which I don't understand. I don't understand how in one instance a person can set a character up as having quick-wit, and then in the next, make the character foolish. I just don't get it.

The climax was anything but that. I'm itching to sarcastically tell you the climax, but I can't because you may want to read it.

East was too long. Worst yet, I feel like East had no substance. It's hard to describe, but I'll try. In it, the narrator tells you this happened, then this happened, then this happened. The end. No moral. No value. Nothing.  

And what the H is with all of these Stockholm Syndrome fairy tales? Beauty and the Beast, anyone? Stockholm Syndrome does NOT equal romantic.

RATING: