East -- Edith Pattou

Okay.  I'm really torn about this one.

I pretty much adored the Beauty and the Beast-ish first half. I was so hooked that when I reached the end of the first half (the Cupid & Psyche part—is that the myth I'm thinking of?), a) I flipped to the end to make sure that everything would turn out okay (which I very rarely do—I usually have a modicum of self restraint) and b) I called the person who recommended it to me to double-check that there would, in fact, be a happy ending.

To back up a smidge, the book is a retelling of the Norwegian fairy tale East of the Sun, West of the Moon, set in 16th century Norway. The story is told by most of the primary characters—Rose (the heroine), the White Bear (he's actually an enchanted man), the Troll Queen who wants the enchanted man as her husband, Rose's brother, Neddy, and her father. The different voices were very well done—I thought that the White Bear's voice (very short poems—kind of just pure emotion) was especially effective.

Don't read any further if you're worried about spoilers.

Okay. Here's my problem. The book starts off with someone finding a trunk full of the stuff from Rose's journey, including papers written by the different characters. I'm guessing that we're supposed to assume that the book itself is made up of those papers, right? But how the heck did the diary of the Troll Queen end up in the trunk? It's impossible. Her palace fell down and I'd assume that Rose & Charles were a little more concerned with getting themselves (and the other humans) out alive than walking around the disintegrating palace looking for souvenirs. Right? And what about the White Bear's chapters? Did Charles write those later, or was he keeping a diary as a bear? I guess that he could have been writing at night, while he was in human form. But I still think that IT MAKES NO SENSE. If she hadn't added that prologue, I'd have liked the book a whole lot more.