The Treachery of Beautiful Things

"But now the holly wears the crown. And the May Queen comes. Will you abide her thorns to hear her voice?"

what a wonderfully dark fairytale. I loved this dark story about a Jenny and a Jack and a boy, Tom, who stumbled into a forest that ate him whole.

7 years later, that same forest swallowed Jenny and now she's fighting for her life in a world she could never even imagine. Where names and kisses, whispers and drinks - all are dangers. Where friendship is only as solid as the promises you've already made.

And even a stone can save the world. The story completely sucked me in and I loved it all. I was sad when I got to the last page, knowing there was no more Jack and Jenny, Puck and fae to love.

"He dreams of it, dreams of a future. Few creatures in the Realm are so cursed as to live in hope. Poor Jack o' the Forest, Jack in Green. He only longs to be free."

First things first: the most enthusiastic and awed applause for the setting, because the world was absolutely a dream come true for me. I hadn't read genuine, nonsensical, fairy-tale fantasy in years and was on the hunt for the past few months, and finally. FINALLY, I FOUND IT. Fairy courts, illusions, tree spirits, names of creatures I can't pronounce. A spectacular mix of beauty, the wicked, and playful viciousness. Queen of the Realm. Seriously stunning.

The format leaned into this and I was so grateful it did - while plenty of creatures were just set-pieces, the events show more started to line up, something like Alice in Wonderland...one trial after another, each highlighting a new challenge and a new creature. The travels through the Realm were genuinely gorgeous and surprising at every turn.

Not to mention the prose itself. Perfect balance of description and action that was pretty, evocative, and dreamy.

So I was very quickly and eagerly invested in the world, but I wish that came a little easier for the characters. I didn't dislike any of them even a little bit, but sometimes I felt like I was fighting for a clear image of their personality and stakes, leaving the tension feeling heartless and the turns feeling cold.

The book is stuffed with twists, and the majority of these are in people's motivations and alliances - explained mostly in dialogue. That's definitely fascinating and quite a balancing act in writing, but most of the time, it didn't feel all that rewarding to me. Sometimes I wasn't sure where we had even started with the character so I couldn't keep track of all the paths they were taking. It wasn't even a problem of tell-not-show - the second half of the book is brimming with sacrifices and drama that would surely have tugged on my heart if I'd known simpler things about these characters and their relationships beforehand. Like, okay, was I...not supposed to trust Puck?

Tom is the simplest version of this. I know that Jenny's motivations since the start relied on getting Tom back, but I had no idea who Tom was besides a musician (and, later, an exposition-bot). I understood Jenny's love and yet had none for myself. Similar situation with Jack (who luckily I cared for because he had POV chapters). I think that they can make all the dramatic sacrifices and declarations of love that they want, but if I don't know if they get each other's jokes or have something in common then I'm not likely to buy their romance as completely. I felt like I was left behind somewhere between their awkward alliance and their heartfelt quest for each other, invested and enjoying their romance, but not to the degree that it was demanding.

That problem unfortunately extended to Jack's alliances with Titania and Oberon. I was told practically in every chapter that Jack was turning on SOMEONE, but I had no idea how and sometimes didn't even know why. Eventually I felt that the crux of the drama was holding on to nothing, which was unfortunately icy and while I got and thoroughly loved the scene-to-scene tension, I wasn't too stressed about the outcome.

To come back around...from what I understood of the motivations and situation, they were very creative and fascinating. Jack's identity was not at all what I expected and I loved it all the more for it. The book used its set-pieces to make some really awesome, stunning scenes with straight-up Hollywood effects with words alone. I wasn't ever bored even if emotionally, I faded away rather than became more invested as it went on.

So in summary - while it didn't set a convincing or charming enough foundation for its cast before trying to yank at my heart, it was a solid adventure with an incredibly lush world that I was continuously excited to keep exploring. show less

A fairy tale, vividly told and painfully sweet.

The Treachery of Beautiful Things took a few chapters to suck me in but once it did I was hooked. I attribute this to the very descriptive writing style. While it paints the scene so well, I personally have a bad habit of getting inpatient sand wanting to skim ahead to juicer parts. So depending on the readers tastes that definitely could work for or against the story.

Jenny is a young girl about to start college, but she returns to a forested area in her home town where she witnessed her brother get abducted by the trees and a Greenman seven years earlier. After years of ridicule from claiming the trees kidnapped her brother and lots of therapy she has come back to say goodbye and let go of show more her brother Tom.

Tom had been a young musical prodigy. The night he was taken he was playing his flute for her as they walked home through the woods. She hears this same melody being played today in the woods and dashes off into the trees swearing to herself it must be him.

So her adventure begins when she finds herself in the Realm of the fae and meets Jack o’ the Forest and Puck!
Honestly, I didn’t expect the story that I got. I was pleasantly surprised when the points of view went back and forth from Jenny and Jack. I love reading from different view points. I felt Jack was brought to life wonderfully, fighting an impossible internal battle, he was a perfect tragic character, that I couldn’t help loving. Now, Jenny could have used a bit more fleshing out in the character development and progression department but ultimately both characters captured my concern and interest.

My favorite part about The Treachery of Beautiful Things was that it ended up being a love story but completely without being a romance! I adore how the author was able to pull that off. I can’t stand overly sappy YA romance, with instant love, and oodles of teenage hormonal angst. This had none of that for me. The relationship was built and slowly strengthened the entire book, until it was something you could really believe meant something to both of them.

It was action, adventure, heartache, discovery, mystery, dark fairytale, and love story all rolled into one nice quick read! show less

The Treachery of Beautiful Things by Ruth Frances Long
Release Date: 8-16-2012
Published by: Dial Books
Thank you Jen Fisher for letting me borrow it!
The Sisters Say: A darkly tragic tale of love and betrayal

When I first read the synopsis of this book, I didn’t know if I would enjoy it or not. I found the idea of getting swallowed by a tree a bit weird. However, after reading the rest of the blurb, I became intrigued by the idea of a world beyond our own, a world full of beauty and magic but laced with poison. As the weeks went by, I sort of became obsessed with wanting to read it; so I was super duper excited when Jen Fisher told me she had a copy I could borrow! YAY!

I’m so glad that I jumped on that opportunity. The Treachery of show more Beautiful Things is a bit Labyrinth, a bit Alice in Wonderland, but wholly and uniquely its own. I was drawn straight into Ruth’s world, from the moment the trees attacked. I loved watching this dark fairy tale unfold, full of frighteningly beautiful creatures, as deadly as they are enchanting. You will never see fairy princesses and knights in shining armor the same again!

While I enjoyed many of the characters in this book, my favorite part was still the world. Ruth wrote it out perfectly—every frightful and mesmerizing detail. I felt like I was watching a movie in my head. I could see the graceful and child-like Folletti flying around with their bow and arrows—their faces twisting with their trickery. I could see the peaceful river that would seduce you to enter, only to pull you to its depths and claim you as its own. I could see the watchful eye of the sun slowly sinking from the sky to surrender you to the darkness. Chilling and addictive, her world is like a drug!

Jenny is the heroine of the story—stuck inside this fantasy world full of temptation and riddles. She wants nothing more than to find Tom and bring him home—or so she thinks. But as she pushes through the forest with the aid of Jack and Puck, she starts to discover that Tom is not the only one who needs saving from this world. There were times I really liked Jenny, but other times that I thought she was childish. She could stand up and be firm and strong, but then she would give in to a temper tantrum. I wanted to see more of the adult Jenny—the one driven by desire and passion and a need to do the right thing. Unfortunately, we tended to see the Jenny that needs protection and sheltering than the girl that won the heart of the forest.

My favorite character (of course) is Jack. Just like every creature in the Realm, he has both a light and a dark side. He struggles against his vows to the King and Queen, wanting to help Jenny as much as he can; but he, like all the creatures, must bow to his oaths. I really enjoyed seeing his struggle between light and dark, good and evil. You could see the struggle in his face, the hard lines on his forehead, in the way he walked and in the way he talked. Ruth did a great job of building up his character, making him more than believable. I wanted to save him—to reach straight into the book and scoop him out. Of course, I always like the troubled characters—the broken boys that struggle to find the good in a sea of evil.

I really wish we could have seen more of the King and Queen. They were great characters—full of evil, and I think they could have made the story so much more suspenseful. However, they weren’t in the book very much until the very end. I would have loved to see more of them throughout the story. I kept picturing Oberon like the Goblin King in Labyrinth—one that tricks and deceives using mind control and dreams. There is even a scene in the book that is reminiscent of the masquerade ball in the movie. These are the scenes where I would have loved to see more of the treachery that was deeply rooted in these two characters.

While it did have its flaws, I found myself enjoying the storyline and rushing through to see how it ended. There were times when the story dragged with Jenny’s naïveté and childish demeanor, but not enough of them to really frustrate me.

Overall, this story was darkly entertaining. Ruth creates a world where beauty is danger, where a kiss can destroy you, and a heart can be your undoing. Open this book and let the trees swallow you whole—you might just not want to find your way back out. show less

Oh my goodness, I don’t think I know the exact words to say. I don’t think I can easily explain how much I freakin love this book. (Which is how I am with all books that take my breath away.)

I have been wary of books about fairies since the last book I read about faeries. (It didn’t turn out very well.) But I was willing to give this a chance, because it wasn’t focused solely on fairies. The cover was beautiful, but like the title says, beautiful things can be deceiving.
This cover was no deception to how awesome the book is.

I was constantly pulled into the story; the descriptions of the Realm are hauntingly beautiful. Ah, it reminds me of Labyrinth and Pan’s Labyrinth (the movies), the way everything is a riddle and full of show more illusions. Which is how all fairytales are, I guess.

Jack and Jenny are by far some of the sweetest and most heart breaking characters I have ever read about! I seriously never wanted this story to end.
And the ending is perfect! ;) show less

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales

Quick & Dirty: A girl gets thrown into a fantasy world of faeries and has to fight for love and freedom.

Opening Sentence: The streetlights flickered on outside the window and Jenny looked up from her book.

The Review:

FAERIES!!!! My favorite subject in the world of Young Adult Fiction. But not the Tinker Bell type fairies, but evil, beautiful, scheming faeries from ancient folklore. So this makes me a tad biased in how the book was. But even if it didn’t have faeries, for creativeness alone, this book is soooo amazing.

After 7 years of psychiatrists and reproachful looks, Jenny has finally decided to move on with her life and say good-bye to her kidnapped brother. So after 7 years of being told show more that what she saw that night wasn’t real, she is stunned to find out that there’s still hope for finding her brother and putting things right again. But it’s not as easy as she thinks. She has to get past Jack, the guardian of the Edge (where the real world and the Realm collide). He has so many allegiances to the rulers that his loyalty to her is swayed almost constantly. But Jack knows something Jenny doesn’t know…she’s the May Queen and the next possible leader of the Realm. With Titania/Mab hunting her down and Oberon trying to make her his queen, Jenny Wren has little hope for a future with Jack…but hope is the one thing that’s impossible to let go.

So, as I said before, this is a book about Faeries. But it’s also a rendition of Snow White (that’s becoming popular nowadays). Although the Snow White plot is small, it’s still cute and original. Every time a characteristic of Snow White’s story unfolded, I was all “aww’s” and “oo’s” (as you can see, I am also a sucker for retold fairy tales). AND! A bit of Norse mythology thrown cleverly in the mix.

The writing of the book is excellent. It has a wide variety of vocabulary (don’t worry it’s not the SATs) and great descriptions (but they don’t overwhelm you so much that you skip them *guilty.*)

Some parts of the book had me a tad confused. Just more explaining would help. The 3rd person POV really helped tell the history of the Fae without going into too much detail, although this also made it confusing at parts because it wasn’t explained all the way.

Although the book could have ended the way it was, I’m still hoping for a sequel. According to Long (I ran to twitter the instant I finished) a second book is still up in the air. So, we should beg Dial to turn Treachery into a series so we can have more Jack and Jenny!

Notable Scene:

“What’s a May Tree?” she asked, ignoring his admonition. He couldn’t know what she was planning. The idea itself was only germinating, and she’d need to pick her moment.

“That is.” He yawned and scratched his rump, referring to the tree tied all over with scraps from the white nightgown.

“The rags, Puck. What are the rags? Did Jack do this?”

Puck froze and then his face fell. “Ah…” he sighed. “Yes, probably. He would do that.”

“Why?” She folded her arms across her chest, the effect of which was lost inside the cloak. But her expression seemed to do the trick.

Puck rolled his eyes to the heavens. “They’re wishes. Each and every one. They’re his wishes.”

“So many?”

“No. Jack only has one wish. But he wishes it a thousand times a day.” Puck turned aside, gazing off though the trees where the song of the river came from. “He dreams of it, dreams of a future. Few creatures in the Realm are so cursed as to live in hope. Poor Jack o’ the Forest, Jack in Green. He only longs to be free.”

FTC Advisory: Dial/Penguin provided me with a copy of The Treachery of Beautiful Things. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review. show less

I got halfway through and I just could not make myself finish this, so I skimmed the rest. Years ago, Jenny's brother (a gifted musician) disappeared into the woods. Jenny has lived in fear of the woods ever since, but at last is determined to conquer her fears and steps foot in them once more. No sooner does she do so than she is swept up into the inexplicable world of the Fey. Her only guide is Jack, but he disappears at night because he turns into the Greenman, uuuuugh so obvious and so Jenny does not know if she can trust him. Meanwhile, Jack is torn between his sworn oath to Oberon and his hope that Titania will give back his heart. Lots of magical stuff happens in the wood and inevitably Jenny will turn into the May Queen and show more free her brother Tom from being the next Tam Lin (again, SO OBVIOUS) and free Jack. I did like the clever way this happens, actually--in the final confrontation Titania turns Jack into his tree form in order to make Jenny let go of him, as in the classic Tam Lin ballad. She does not let go, even though his briars prick her, making her bleed. And then Puck calls upon the forest fae to declare their loyalty--and they do, to the Oak (aka the tree Jack has turned into) and to the queen who has spilled blood upon him. So Titania's own actions lead to her defeat, which I thought was quite nicely done.

Overall, I just wasn't impressed by this. There's enough power and weight and history in the sidhe tales this draws on that Jenny and Jack's romance felt small and unimportant compared to it. And unfortunately, Long's writing is just not up to the epic task this story sets for her. I'd rather reread Pamela Dean, Susan Cooper, or Jane Yolen, who've done far more interesting and intense work with these tales. show less