Jen Calonita

Another wonderful entry in the Fairy Tale Reform School series! Look, it's no secret that I have a soft spot for these kinds of stories. I'm a Middle Grade reader, trapped in an adult's body. I love magic, mischief, and stories about great friendships. It's no wonder, then, that I also love Jen Calonita's writing. I enjoyed the first book, Flunked, immensely. So I couldn't wait to get my hands on Charmed and see what Gilly was up to now.

The first thing I noticed about this sequel was that show more Gilly has grown up. Oh, sure, she's still a rascal. She and her friends get up to all sorts of silliness. At the heart of it though, Gilly knows what true evil looks like now. She understands that people can get hurt, and that the choices we make affect others. I loved how Calonita didn't just let Gilly sit at this new point in her life though. Instead, she grows even more throughout the course of this book. Middle Grade readers need good role models and, as feisty as Gilly is, she definitely fits that bill.

Plus, there were so many more fairy tale references to fall in love with! I can't deny that I'm a sucker for a fairy tale pun. Those abound here, and if I'm finding myself giggling I have no doubt that young readers will too. I also appreciated the addition of new, and interesting characters. Most notably, Blackbeard makes his debut here. The idea that a new reader might want to discover the history of that dreaded pirate? Well, it makes me all giddy. He also adds a nice lightness to everything, what with his pirate manners and all. Pirates aren't exactly known for their manners.

I'm being completely honest when I say that I hope there's more of these stories to come. The ending had me a bit teary eyed, and truly hoping that this isn't the last I'll see of Gilly and her friends. If you have a young reader at home, especially one who enjoys a good fairy tale, this is a series you should get them started on. Jen Calonita's writing is wonderful. show less

I have loved this cover since the very first time I saw it and I hate to admit it, but I do judge a book by its cover. Luckily this time I was right and I really enjoyed Flunked. This book takes the re-telling of fairy tales and adds in flare but making the former villains head of a reform school that teaches young might-be villains the ways of good, thus reforming them for Enchantasia.

Wonderfully, you get to see villains and princesses from fairy tales we know and love and have them be the show more background to a new hero - Gillian. Gillian is one of the many daughters of the Cobbler and she hates the royals - they take everything and live wonderful lives while her family barely feeds themselves. When she gets thrown into reform school, she never images that she will actually reform.

Gilly is quite the main character, she loves others but looks out for her own, she is strong-willed, but also somewhat willing to change and so she grows a lot in this book. Because of her character I flew through this read, the plot was very well done and fun to read but I liked Gilly, and I liked the person she started out as and the one she becomes. It was a wonderful first book in a series and I can't wait to pick up the next one. show less

What if Anna and Elsa never knew each other?

Answer: The same thing that happens in Frozen.

Why do I keep reading these Frozen books that are the same damn thing as the movie? Is it because it’s a perfect story as it is?

This feels like an unnecessary script doctoring somebody found in the Disney archives. Like some executive had a deadline so he gave it to his sister’s kid who just graduated film school and said “here, give me something I can bring to the board meeting on show more Thursday.”

Like other “Twisted Tales“, the plot hinges on a cruel spin. This time, the spell to remove Anna’s memories goes awry. Now, if Anna and Elsa are too close together, Anna will turn into ice, like in the ending. So Anna is sent to a different village.

Not a great difference, is it? Anna’s the same person–bubbly and social. Elsa’s still introverted and proper. And they both lived somewhat separated in the original movie.

Elsa still creates Olaf. She still meets the deceptive Hans. She still reveals her powers in a fit of emotion. She still builds an ice castle (there’s even a chapter that’s essentially “Let It Go” in prose form. Now that’s exciting stuff.) She’s still captured and taken to the dungeon. Anna still meets Kristoff who takes her to find Elsa (who she thinks is in trouble based on no evidence). She still goes to Oaken’s. She still has a chase with the wolves. She still rushes to save Elsa from Hans at the end and turns into a frozen statue that’s healed by love.

If you change one thing, you’ve got to change the entire story. It’s a butterfly effect. Anna may not have a different personality, but her goals should change. The plot should change. She shouldn’t be concerned about government machinations. It’d be like if I was Kamala Harris’s long lost brother, but didn’t know it, and I had to find her before Mitch McConnell took over. I have no investment in that scenario–I’m distant in both the physical sense and familiar sense. I’ve got my baked goods to worry about.

And if you’re going to make a twisted tale, then the point of the twisting should be to show us a completely different story, not the same. Straight on Till Morning and Part of Your World did that and it worked beautifully. The conclusion of the movie never took place, so the story is totally different and the characters evolve differently. Ariel is consumed with regret and Wendy becomes an action girl. If Anna and Elsa don’t know each other, why not have them meet at the beginning of the story? Then we can watch their relationship form while they have an adventure that has nothing to do with Prince Hans or Olaf or the Duke of Weselton.

But redoing the movie is lazy lazy lazy. It doesn’t give the reader what they want, which is an “alternate universe” Frozen. This is, beat for beat, the same story. Everything’s just in a different order. It’s a waste of your time. Don’t read this book. show less

Twelve year old Gilly has made a career of robbing the royals to keep her large family fed, however, that comes to a crashing halt when Gilly’s nabbed for thievery and sentenced to a reform school staffed by infamous fairytale villains (Cinderella’s step-mother, Snow White’s evil queen, etc.), all of whom claim to be reformed themselves. But have they truly reformed?

This had a fun, creative concept, particularly in the wide array of students populating the school, in addition to an show more ordinary every day cobbler’s kid like Gilly, there are fairies, trolls, and even mermaids who sit in tanks at the back of class, making for an abundance of “visually” interesting details.

As much as I liked Gilly’s strength and intelligence, I liked Maxine, a bullied troll, and Kayla, a conflicted fairy, just a little more. There was something in Maxine and Kayla’s vulnerability and in the physical descriptions of their vulnerability that made them kind of adorable, even though in appearance Maxine allegedly isn’t traditionally adorable, and in her questionable actions, Kayla certainly has her moments where she shouldn’t be adorable, either, but it’s the power of a well-crafted dimensional character that I found things to adore in each of them.

Readers more into intrigue and action will undoubtedly enjoy the latter half of this book more than I did. Not that I found it bad, it’s just my sensibilities run more towards the emotional dynamics between Gilly and her family, Kayla grappling with her guilty conscience, and Maxine tentatively gaining friendships, so those were the areas of the book where it shone just a bit brighter for me. show less