2.5 stars. The idea and premise of the story was interesting.

I really like the idea of retelling fairytales and typically find it to be a pretty refreshing read. I jumped at the opportunity to read My Name is Rapunzel as I haven’t read a lot of tales about her story. I read the synopsis of this one and was intrigued. Unfortunately, after about the first 4-5 chapters, I wasn’t really sure what my review was going to look like so I’m going to write this review a bit differently.

The story starts out well but it honestly lost me a bit of the way in. Rapunzel is eighteen in 1763 and has finally found the love of her life, Henry. The lead in is that he has proposed and they are going to run away together as his parents are not happy that they are together. With their plans in place, they head back to Rapunzel’s home and are confronted by Gretta, the village witch, and that’s where things take a turn for the worse for both of these characters. Gretta has convinced herself that Rapunzel committed her life to her and because of that, she refuses to let her run off with Henry. When they still plan to run, Gretta puts a curse on them. Rapunzel is going to live forever and Henry ends up dying trying to get Rapunzel to run.

Spoiler

…or so we are led to believe.

Some of my notes:

I thought the way the author showed Rapunzel’s transition from the 1700’s to now living in 2013 was done well. Despite being cut off from society and being pretty remote, she has adapted.

The dialogue between the characters seemed awkward most of the time. I found myself getting whiplash with some of the responses Rapunzel had to the characters around her. One minute it was a normal tone then she would be angry. Also, with John, he believes her story, then doesn't, then does...

For 250 years Rapunzel is living with Gretta and unable to get past her love for Henry. Then all of a sudden she meets John through a newspaper article he wrote and all of a sudden she finds herself feeling things for another person. …it seemed abrupt.

I liked the way the author used Luke to help Rapunzel build a relationship with someone and also have someone important in her life.

I didn’t understand why Gretta wanted to live forever…outside of living forever, what was her motivation?

Overall I thought this one was ok. I wasn’t able to get invested in any of the characters with the exception of one and he wasn’t even in most of the book. There were some twists and turns that kept me turning the pages to see how it would end so that was a plus. Perhaps this is a case of it’s not you, it’s me. If you enjoy a quick read and fairytale retellings, you might enjoy this one.