Title: Vassa In The Night
Author: Sarah Porter
Publisher: Tor Teen
Page Count: 304
Publication Date: 16th October 2016
Rating: 3/5
The Blerb:
In the enchanted kingdom of Brooklyn, the fashionable people put on cute shoes, go to parties in warehouses, drink on rooftops at sunset, and tell themselves they’ve arrived. A whole lot of Brooklyn is like that now—but not Vassa’s working-class neighborhood.
In Vassa’s neighborhood, where she lives with her stepmother and bickering stepsisters, one might stumble onto magic, but stumbling out again could become an issue. Babs Yagg, the owner of the local convenience store, has a policy of beheading shoplifters—and sometimes innocent shoppers as well. So when Vassa’s stepsister sends her out for light bulbs in the middle of night, she knows it could easily become a suicide mission.
But Vassa has a bit of luck hidden in her pocket, a gift from her dead mother. Erg is a tough-talking wooden doll with sticky fingers, a bottomless stomach, and a ferocious cunning. With Erg’s help, Vassa just might be able to break the witch’s curse and free her Brooklyn neighborhood. But Babs won’t be playing fair.
Review:
I received this book with my September Fairyloot box and until then I’d never heard of the book or the author.
This book is based on a Russian Fairytale Vasilissa The Beautiful which could go someway to explaining why I just couldn’t get it.
Overall I found the story bizarre. Personally I like to know a story’s setting such as era etc. With this story you never quite know when it’s set, is magic commonly accepted? Is is socially accepted to kill so easily? These little things niggled me thought-out the book.
The story itself I actually really liked, the chatacters Vassa and Erg were quite enjoyable to read about as were some of the secondary characters. Babs played the perfect villan.
There is just something about the way it is written that didn’t catch me. Perhaps I will re-read this another time and see if my opinion changes much.
This book has left me conflicted as I equally enjoyed and disliked it. Saying that I was eager to read it and didn’t really put it down once I had started.
Vassa In The Night has left me discombobulated for sure hence the 3 star rating.
Have you read this? What were your thoughts? Perhaps I need to read the original fairytale beforehand next time.
Thanks for reading.
The Stationery Geekette x
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