I knew it. I knew it! The plague turns people blue!
(Back during the first book, I theorized that the plague in this series--letumosis, also called "the blue plague"--turns people blue as one of its symptoms. This I inferred from the fact that it's called "the blue plague." However, I didn't remember any actual confirmation of that until I ran into some in this book.)
Anyway. As you may be able to guess from the cover, this is a retelling of Rapunzel. But because this is a sci-fi series, Cress (our Rapunzel) is imprisoned on a satellite instead of in a tower, and her escape involves a partially botched reentry after our Gothel character tries to ruin everything. (Despite her best efforts, however, Gothel only ruins some things.)
I actually don't think I've read the original fairy tale. I'd watched Tangled (2010), but that isn't the most faithful adaptation, so I missed out on some details that I think this book did in pretty cool ways.
Case in point, in the original, the prince was blinded after getting shoved out of the tower. Which makes the fact that Carswell Thorne acquires some head-trauma-induced blindness from getting thrown around during the reentry make a lot more sense. Given that blindness from head trauma is actually a thing that can happen, that's actually rather brilliant.
Carswell "Probably Flynn Rider Guy" Thorne, by the way, is our prince for this. He first showed up in the previous book. As I suspected, the reason his cargo ship can go to space is for plot reasons, so he can rescue Cress from her satellite. Cress has an almost comically bad crush on him, because she's sixteen and he (thinks he) is Han Solo. It's honestly kind of adorable.
"Thinks he is Han Solo" is pretty much Thorne's entire character; he wants to be this cool smuggler person with a stolen spaceship, but he can't quite pull it off. Case in point, he starts the series... in jail. For stealing that spaceship. He doesn't even have a grand plan to escape, he just sort of gets dragged along in Cinder's beecause she needs his spaceship.
Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for some sexual references and a rather disturbing telepathic torture scene.
4 stars.
This has been my first of two contributions to We Love Fairy Tales Week, hosted at Hamlette's Soliloquy.
(Endnote: I'm just glad the author picked "Cress" as the name for her Rapunzel character, and not "Spinach" or "Parsley" or something.)
I read this series and I enjoyed it. Cress reminds me too much of that Disney movie Tangled and I kind of think the whole book is like a version of that movie with different settings and names and new little touches but I still prefer the movie.
ReplyDeleteHave a lovely day.
I honestly can't speak to how similar this is to Tangled; it's been several years since I last watched that movie. It would make some sense for them to hit a lot of the same beats, though, because they are both based on the same fairy tale.
DeleteThis book is so much fun! My favorite of the series for sure. I agree, the details and references to the original fairy tale are brilliant! Another subtle "Easter egg" is the name of the ship being the Rampion, which is another name for Rapunzel. ^_^
ReplyDeleteWait, rampion is another name for rapunzel? *quickly googles* Huh, so it is. I never knew that. That's awesome.
DeleteI've not heard of this series, but it looks intriguing. This book, in particular, looks like a must read.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very good series, yes.
DeleteThese books were really cool retellings! The idea of Rapunzel being in a satellite instead of a tower was just really ingenious to me!
ReplyDeleteThe author really is adept at integrating the original fairy tales with the new setting. Hence things like the car in Cinder.
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