Review: Great Coming-Of-Age Story
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 6, 2012
I might be a bit long in the tooth for YA stories, especially those that are based on fairy tales, but I still love the ones that are truly great stories that just happen to have characters who are young--which is true of this one. I have a great fondness of coming-of-age stories, because adolescence is the critical and dangerous time of life when our personalities are still fluid enough to allow major changes in who we are (and for many people the final time.) The choices young people make in their late teens may determine if they grow into full, functional, well-rounded adults with character, integrity, and a true sense of self or get frozen into an as-if stereotype that they have adopted instead and lock themselves into being incomplete, insecure, and dysfunctional persons who allow others to define them. The two main characters in this story are balanced on that very edge of those very dramatic, vital, and scary decisions, with potentially serious and even deadly consequences that will have to be faced if they choose to grow a backbone. My only complaint about this novella is the ending, but I can't say why without spoilers. So if I had some problems with the ending, why am I giving the book 5-stars. Simple, because the story leading up to that ending was worth 6-stars.