Book Review: Emerald Bound by Teresa Richards

Emerald Bound by Teresa Richards

**This ARC was provided through NetGalley for an honest review--Thanks NetGalley!**

What it's about:

          In this retelling of the Princess and the Pea, a game of truth or dare turns strange when one of Maggie's friends goes missing after spending the night at a classmate's strange mansion.  Even stranger? Nobody but Maggie even remembers Kate.  Maggie is determined to find out what's going on, and knows it *has* to have something to do with an enchanted glowing emerald, a mysterious hoodied boy called Garon, and the strange classmate who lives in the house.

What I thought:

          I truly commend the author on picking a less mainstream fairy tale to retell! I like the Princess and the Pea and have found it super underutilized in the modern genre of retellings.

We end up following two different stories within this book--one in the present that follows Maggie and her missing BFF, and the other that tries to convey the origin story of the emerald as well as Lindy, the weird loner classmate who lived not only in the olden-day country of Valstenia, but also now...in Maggie's time.

Honestly, I didn't love this book.  I was really looking forward to a neat retelling, but in my opinion it missed the mark and seemed to only extract the "object under the mattress" aspect of the original tale. 

Parts of the story really dragged on and there were many bits that I felt were unnecessary and ended up making the events convoluted and confusing rather than explanatory.  We were switched back and forth so much that I forgot what was happening in the main story while reading the origin story--if there was even enough time between origin scenes for anything of worth to actually happen.  In fact, at both 30% and 60% through, I updated my Goodreads status mentioning how much the book was dragging on. 

Me, while trying to get through this book.

While parts of the story line were creative, I think what held my enjoyment of it back so much was that this was supposed to be a retelling, but just ended up its own separate story.  The characters weren't very well developed and some of the revelations we get right at the ending seemed rushed and stuck in last minute because it was easy to make that the resolution.  

"Yer a Princess, Maggie?"

Overall, this book was decently written and I smell a sequel brewing, but I don't think I will be reading anything else related to this book.  If you're into YA chase scenes with a few fairy tale elements thrown in, you might be interested in picking up a copy!

Rating: 2.5 stars.