Four Stars
It rang of beauty and the beast; the bear man and the girl, and a carefully balanced curse, but it was presented in a very creative way. The second half of the book was utterly origional, a complex, fascinating work of fantasy.
She creates her own world, drawing on real life, but spinning her projection of reality into a marvelous fantasy realm.
One thing I loved was that they where friends before she even knew he was human. Also the balance of importance with names; her mother naming them after the directions in which they where born, and her not even knowing Charles's name until the very end.
Highly recommended.
___SPOILER ALERT___
_HIGHLIGHT TEXT TO READ REVIEW_
-East - Edith Pattou-
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Set in Norway in a slightly alternate universe.
A family with a superstitious mother. She is obsessed with birth direction, the direction your mother was facing when you where born. She decides to have seven children: One fore every point of the compass except North. She believes north borns to be rash, wild, adventurous, violent, everything she doesn't want in her children.
It goes well. She has a child for every point of the compass. And then her east daughter dies. So she has another daughter, another East.
Only, Rose isn't east, as she was supposed to be. She was north. So, her mother lied. Said she was east, and tried to fit her into the mold of her east sister who had died. She was a bit wild, though. Always wandering off.
When she was a child, a white bear saved her from drowning, and it comes back when her south sister is ailing, saying that if Rose went with him, he would help there family out of poverty and save her sister.
Her father says no, her mother says yes.
Rose finds out she's not East, but north, and, hurt, she goes with the bear. She travels for a long time on his back to a castle in a mountain. It is nice there, and even though the bear can barely talk, they become friends.
She goes for a month to visit her family.
When she comes back, curiosity gets the better of her, and she uses a strange candle her mother gave her to see who the being she's noticed at night is.
The second she finds out, the castle disappears. It was a man, one who during the day was a white bear.
He says that he's being taken off to be 'her' husband forever, because she saw him, and so his curse was not broken.
This starts her wild, powerful adventure, and his forgetful one.
One thing I loved was that they where friends before she even knew he was human. Also the balance of importance with names; her mother naming them after the directions in which they where born, and her not even knowing Charles's name until the very end.
___SPOILER ALERT___
_HIGHLIGHT TEXT TO READ_
-East - Edith Pattou-
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