Tuesday 19 February 2013

Reviews: The Grimm Diaries Prequels #1 - #3


Snow White Blood Red (The Grimm Diaries Prequels, #1)Ashes to Ashes and Cinder to Cinder  (The Grimm Diaries Prequels, #2)Beauty Never Dies (The Grimm Diaries Prequels, #3)
The Grimm Diaries Prequels by Cameron Jace
Published: 2012 - 2013
Publisher: Cameron Jace
At this current moment in time 10 of The Grimm Diaries Prequels have been published, the last four do not yet have covers so I will hold off posting reviews until they do because it does help make the post a lot prettier and I'll be posting them three at time as they are only short stories so I can't imagine that I'm going to have a lot to type up.
I can not promise that these reviews will be spoiler free, especially as they're short stories!

Page Count: 25
Read Date: January 25th 2013
Synopsis: I have always wondered why you never asked about my name. Was I so superficial to you? So stereotypical and mundane? Why did you treat me as if I were just the monster of the week? You know what I think? You never had the time to really hate me. You wanted to hate me, long before you even met me. You wanted to scrape my existence and avenge your childhood princess by laying all blame on me. What if they didn’t call me the Evil Queen, what if I told you the real story from my point of view instead of hers, would you ever think of me as an angel? Could I ever make you care? I know that deep inside of you, you adore me,but you’re just scared, afraid to admit how much you love the Snow White Queen.
Review: The Amazon Kindle Lending Library is possibly one of the greatest things invented, though I'm still getting used to finding my way around it but The Grimm Diaries Prequels showed up on my recommended list and after reading the synopsis on Goodreads I decided to give them a go and I'm glad I did. Snow White Blood Red is from the point of view of Snow White's Mother, most commonly known as The Evil Queen - you know the lady with the poisonous apples and she tells us the story of Snow White growing up and how it came to be that she is wanted dead. I adored how the author spun this tale because Snow White isn't the Princess we're used too, no this one likes to bite cute boys and has a rather evil streak because she's a vampire and well as you know vampires are something I adore and whilst you might think this is odd it fits in really well and it's clearly well thought out.
5 / 5 stars

Page Count: 28
Read Date: January 25th 2013
Synopsis: Seventeen-year-old Alice Grimm lives a dangerously enchanted life. Other than being distracted by a Dreamhunter called Loki Blackstar who has a heart of gold but acts like a jerk, she has a job to do. Being a descendant of the Brothers Grimm, she is one of few in the world who can locate the fairy tale characters and remind them of who they are. This time, Alice flies to Venice where an 800 hundred year old witch's skeleton surrounded with seventeen glass slippers was found by archeologists in the city that invented the art of glassblowing. When Alice and Loki follow the lead, they find one of the fairy tale characters she had been searching for. It's a famous girl character that you know by name, but never really knew what actually happened to her.
Review: This short story has a slightly different feel too it as its from the view of a Dreamhunter, her job is to enter the dreams of the fairy tale characters to help guide them on the right track, this particular one is Cinderella's mother and Alice helps guide her to safety after a fire breaks out in Venice. Its cleverly thought of and theres a lot of facts and historical events in this one to illustrate exactly why Cinderella is called that and how she came to be. I think what I enjoyed most about this one is how we're made aware of a lot of important facts about her Mother and her magic but we're not actually introduced to Cinderella herself so it'll be interesting to either run into her in later prequels or the main book. I wonder if she's a witch and whether she's as dark as Snow White?
4 / 5 stars

Beauty Never Dies
Page Count: 63
Read Date: January 25th 2013
Synopsis: Peter Pan has a plan. Since it's been hundred years since his friends were all cursed by the Brothers Grimm, he is about to wake up Sleeping Beauty, his eternal lover. Oops, you didn't know that. Blame it on the Grimms.  But in the middle of the ceremony, he is visited by the Evil Queen who manipulates him into helping her with information about Snow White. This or she will expose him as he has been secretly kidnapping kids to help him rebuild Neverland in the Dreamworld. After the deal is made, Peter continues with the ceremony, bringing Sleeping Beauty back into life. What Sleeping Beauty is capable of and who she really is are like nothing ever written in the books.
Review: I think this is possibly my favourite of the lot as we get to see a different side to Peter Pan, this story follows him on his quest to help the one he loves - Sleeping Beauty - awaken again. This story is probably also the funniest of the lot as we get to meet Dracula too who isn't exactly the fearing Vampire we all know and love. We also meet The Evil Queen yet again and she helps to bring another mystery to the table - who are the chosen seven and what does she need them for and what could they mean for the future of their world - as she tries to get help from Peter about who they could be.
5 / 5 stars