Cindy C Bennett

Retold fairy tale, Facebook, romance, kidnapping, SCIDs, ghosts, prophecy, sorcery, NetGalley

Rapunzel is a girl locked in a tower; she’s only seen her mother who insists she must stay there for her safety, because she has an autoimmune disease. She’s told she is the fulfillment of a prophecy.
Fane is a young man who lives in the same community as Rapunzel, they meet on Facebook. He’s a nice guy – Rapunzel got lucky.

Imagine you’ve never heard the story of Rapunzel, her greedy mother, Prince Charming, or the strange witch who could trade vegetables for a baby. Now, remember the news stories of missing babies, hopeful parents always searching for those missing children, Facebook, and nice teenage boys next door. That puts a new spin on an old story doesn’t it?

I’ll admit, I love fairy tales, and I love good retellings even better. This is a pretty good modern spin, with the whole Facebook to meet “Prince Charming” kind of fun- stranger danger aside. The thrill of disobeying a parent is there, although consequences hopefully aren’t usually life threatening. I do have some issues with the novel, for example Vedmak – the bad guy isn’t filled out quite as much as he should be. I feel like there could have been more information on him, but we are limited by Rapunzel’s view point in the story, we only know what she knows. I did feel the ending could have had more drama and been longer. (Spoiler) Even though Rapunzel’s real parents are divorced, they don’t want to see her? That’s almost as cruel as Gothel was. So while I liked Rapunzel Untangled, and I plan to buy it, I’d like more from the author, perhaps an epilogue, a prequel short story? Something.
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