Entwined (Dixon)

3+/5. Ohh... I really, really liked this book... until the end. Until then, it's a pitch-perfect retelling of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" that has as its emotional core the relationship between the princesses and their father, especially after their mother's death. I love books about family, so this obviously struck hard at me. (And in contrast to many books with an absent mother, the mother is actually a presence in their lives, and has a more vibrant character than the father for much of the book.) I also loooved the character of Fairweller. And I've been incompetent at dancing my whole life, starting with quitting ballet in third grade, but somehow Dixon made it sound fun.

One of the interesting things I found about it was that, well, the princesses make some decisions that are clearly the Wrong Thing to Do. And usually my reaction to this is "I don't want to read about stupid people!" But here -- and I think this is a feature of books I love in general -- Dixon has set up the characters so carefully, and delineates them so well, that you understand their reactions as basically a totally reasonable reaction under the circumstances.

Unfortunately, the ending kind of falls down, and retroactively wrecked the rest of the book for me. ( (Spoilers follow. They are lame spoilers, but spoilers nevertheless.) )

Seriously, in ten minutes I could come up with a better ending than that.