Bound To Stay Bound

View MARC Record
 

Full Text Reviews:

Booklist - 05/15/2013 Flinn (Bewitching, 2012) is back with yet another clever spin on a fairy tale. This time, it’s an empowering retelling of the story of Rapunzel. Rachel, an ethereal beauty with fast-growing hair, is trapped in a tower and visited only by the woman she calls Mama. Meanwhile, Wyatt flees his hometown—and his past—after a heartbreaking tragedy befalls his best friends, and he lands at old lady Greenwood’s house in a sleepy, desolate Adirondack town with its own share of secrets. After hearing a haunting voice from the woods, and piqued by the diaries of Mrs. Greenwood’s long-lost daughter, Wyatt wanders into the forest and finds Rachel’s tower. Together, they unlock the secret of Rachel’s origin and the purpose of her mysterious powers. This has well-rounded characters, including Rachel, who is no damsel in distress but a formidable heroine in her own right, and a fast pace. Plenty of hard realism—drug use, domestic abuse, and teen pregnancy—makes this retelling more than just a fantasy. Luckily for happily-ever-after fans, Towering doesn’t skimp on the fairy-tale ending. - Copyright 2013 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 07/01/2013 Gr 8 Up—Flinn reinvents the "Rapunzel" story as a teen thriller. Rachel spends her days and nights alone in a tower. Her sole contact with humanity is the daily visit of "Mama," and Rachel both loves and rebels against her jailor. Then Wyatt arrives in town. His mother is hoping that he will begin to recover from his friends' deaths in a car accident. He can't understand why no one in this small town seems perturbed by the number of missing teenagers, one of whom was his mother's best friend. He also can't understand why he is apparently the only one who can hear a girl singing somewhere in the frozen woods. When he sets out to find her, he puts into motion a chain of events that leads him, Rachel, and her "mother" into a showdown with violent drug manufacturers and their imprisoned labor force. Flinn cleverly weaves fantasy and realism together into what seems to be almost a new genre. Rather than the cop-out of a dystopian future setting, her story is grounded in the reality of an upstate New York where unemployment is rife, it is always winter, and there is no cell-phone service. Teens will identify and sympathize with Wyatt's loss and Rachel trapped in her tower, and they will rejoice in the tenderness of their blooming romance amid the menace of drug violence. The author's skillful writing somehow makes it completely plausible that sweetness, innocence, and true love can survive within the contemporary social evils of addiction and abduction-and also that Rachel's golden tresses can grow to reach the ground overnight.—Jane Barrer, United Nations International School, New York City - Copyright 2013 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

View MARC Record
Loading...



  • Copyright © Bound to Stay Bound Books, Inc. All rights reserved.
  • Privacy Policy