Curse of the Thireenth Fey

Today’s post is on "Curse of the Thirteenth Fey” by Jane Yolen. It is 290 pages long and is published by Philomel Books. The cover is a close up of a pretty young girl asleep on the green grass. The intended reader is older children and young adult. There is no language, no sex, and the action is age appropriate. It is told from the first person point of view of the main character Gorse. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the dust jacket- Gorse is the thirteenth and youngest of the Shouting Fey, a family of faeries who are tied to the evil king’s land and made to do his Bidding. Because of an oath the first Shouters made to the king’s great-great-ever-so-many-times-great-grandfather, if they try to leave or disobey any member of the royal family, they will burst into a thousand stars.
When the accident-prone Gorse falls ill just as the family is Bid to bless the king’s new baby daughter, a story like- and unlike- Sleeping Beauty starts to unfold.
Sick as she is, thirteen-year-old Gorse wakes out of her fever and races to the castle with the last piece of magick the family has left for her- a spindle with a piece of the Thread of Life with which to bless the baby.
But that is when accident, mayhem, and magick combine to make Gorse’s story veer into the unthinkable, threatening the baby, the Shouters, the kingdom, and all.
With her trademark depth, grace, and humor, master storyteller Jane Yolen weaves a tale of magick that tells readers the “true” story of the faerie who cursed the princess and the sleeping spell that just might end them all.

Review- This story is good but it does not become Sleeping Beauty until the last 40 pages. But the story is fun, lighthearted, and has a happily ever after. Yolen is a good storyteller and she does not fail again. It is marketed to young adult but I do not think that is a young adult novel. The story is good but I think that children will like it better. The characters are fun but I think that a teenager would not enjoy them because there is no darkness in this story. There is a villain and he is really bad but there is no real danger to Gorse or her family. I believed that everything would work out in the end and I was right. That is not a bad thing but most young adults want there to be some suspense about it. In the end this is a fun story about a 13-year-old fairy who accidentally curses Sleeping Beauty at the end of the story. It is more about how Gorse is going to help save her life from the Bidding and stop the bad guy from getting out of his prison.

I give this one Four out of Five Stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.