Michaelis,
Antonia. The Storyteller. Amulet see Abrams, 2011. 402p. $18.95. ISBN 978-1-4197-0047-7 Grade 11 to adult Conflict E-BN
A murder mystery embedded
within a fairy tale is told by Abel, a high-school drug dealer, to his
six-year-old sister, and it also intrigues Anna, a classmate of his. As Anna falls in love with Abel, she must
decide if he could also be a murderer. From
the first page, the reader knows this is going to be a stunning read that will
be hard to put down. An amazingly simple
vocabulary that evokes crisp mental pictures of locale and emotion pulls the
reader into a mesmerizing fairy tale. The
first scene in the story details a truly horrific event that is only fully
comprehended in the last forty pages of the book, when Anna comes to realize
that Abel is hiding a secret life. He is
the sole caregiver for his six-year-old sister, Micha. As love starts to blossom between the two
high-school students from opposite sides of the tracks, Anna becomes immersed
in the cautionary fairy tale that Abel creates to entertain Micha. With horror and yet fascination, Anna
recognizes the characters in the ongoing fairy tale as having real-life
counterparts. When people in the
community meet untimely deaths, the corollary is there in the fairy tale. The wrap-up in the last pages of the book will
leave the reader feeling gut-punched. This
is a book that defies classification -- it is a thrilling murder mystery, a compassionate
love story, and a magical fairy tale. It
is a book for mature readers and best suited for upper high-school and adult
readers.
Genre: Love Story Lois
McNicol
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