Entwined by Heather Dixon
Publisher/Year: Greenwillow Books | March 29, 2011
Pages: 480
Series: Stand Alone
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy/Fairy Tale
Format: Audiobook read by Mandy Williams
Source: Overdrive
Shannan’s Summary
It’s a retelling of “the twelve dancing princess.” Which is one of my favorite fairytales (vastly underrated in my opinion.) The oldest sister is Azalea, making her the Princess Royal, and the one who will take over after her father. She’s not to happy about this, or the fact she doesn’t have a lot of say in her life. So her and her sisters find a secret passageway in their fireplace, that let’s them escape all the rules and run off to their favorite thing in the world: dancing. The only problem is the place they dance is maintained by a guy named keeper, who likes to live up to his name.
Summary (From Goodreads)
Azalea is trapped. Just when she should feel that everything is before her . . . beautiful gowns, dashing suitors, balls filled with dancing . . . it’s taken away. All of it.
The Keeper understands. He’s trapped, too, held for centuries within the walls of the palace. And so he extends an invitation. Every night, Azalea and her eleven sisters may step through the enchanted passage in their room to dance in his silver forest. But there is a cost. The Keeper likes to keep things. Azalea may not realize how tangled she is in his web until it is too late.
First Off…
Somehow I decided to read this book not realizing it was a retelling of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” until I was maybe a third of the way in. I’m not really sure how I missed that in the summary or the first 10 chapters. But I was super excited when I did realize it, because like I said, I love this fairy tale.
Thoughts:
I loved this story. It wasn’t so much a retelling as an in depth telling, although the end was twisted. I love that she plays out the whys of 12 princesses running away in the middle of the night to dance. And Azalea was written so well. I have this as a young adult but it’s almost at a new adult level because it’s all the boundary line of not just coming of age, but taking charge of your life. Azalea is born into a position where she doesn’t get a say on what she will be when she grows up, or who she will marry, or where she will live. Day dreaming in all those normal ways wasn’t possible for her because she was the first born and she will inherit all the answers to those questions.
Then there’s her sisters. All eleven of them that go down to the newly born lilly. It’s amazing how distinct they all are. I think I’m even more glad that I was listening to it because it helped keep everyone straight. But they all had wonderfully distinct personalities and you love each of them by the end.
Now this has an added component because it was an audiobook. The weird thing with me and audiobooks is that they become a person almost, more than a book that I have to do the reading. I think it’s because audiobooks set the pace, where with a traditional book, I can push myself faster when I’m emotional. Anyways, I’m much more vocal about my feelings when it’s an audiobook for some reason and will talk and respond to the characters as the story is happening. So I found myself chastising Azalea a couple times, but I also laughed out loud several times, which I didn’t expect. There were some pretty well written lines, a couple even got written down.
By about the last half of the book I was hooked and couldn’t stop listening. First there was the regular tug of the family dynamics. Plus the fact that the king was trying to marry Azalea off. Then there was the magic side of the story with Keeper where I liked him one minute and hated him the next and then I’d want him to wind up with Azalea, then I’d want him to wind up in a grave. For a while wasn’t sure which side of the feeling fence I would wind up on where he was concerned it was so much back and forth. I did like what happened with him and Azalea in the end, and that’s all I’ll say about that.
Romance does play a part in the story, because there are princesses that the king wants to marry off. But it’s the kind that feels more like real life, full of awkwardness and misunderstandings. But I like that, it made me feel more connected with the characters and hurt for them because I was worried they would get in the way of their own happiness.
One Character that I really had heart tears for (that is tears that never made it to my eyes but were definitely real) was the King. The girls really gave him a hard time through most of the book and I just felt bad that he was so down trodden over his wife and then his girls were practically kicking him out of the family to boot. I was hoping he would soften up and the family pieces would mend, and you’ll just have to read to see if I got my wish. But I think I was the sadest for him through the whole grieving process.
10 Second Summary:
- The expanded telling of the 12 Dancing Princesses is exceptional: Dixon did a great job taking a story most people would have an idea about and turning it into a story with unexpected turns everywhere. I love this story and know it thoroughly, but I still had no clue what was happening until the paragraph before it happened.
- There is magic, but not in a Harry Potter way: The magic is subtle and somehow feels like that kind of magic belongs in the world. Maybe it does and I just haven’t found it yet. But it ddoesn’tfeel otherworldly, just natural.
- It’s a story mostly about owning your identity: There is a lot of uncertainty that hits Azalea at the same time her life is getting squeezed into a predetermined box. She has to figure out who she is in-spite of everything happening around her and stand up as the person she has chosen to be. That’s the heart of this story.
Hardback all the way on this one. It’s one I’ll have to reread sometime as well. REALLY liked this story.