Adventures in Reading: The Golden Braid

This is the first book by Melanie Dickerson that I have read and I LOVED it. 

"Rapunzel can throw a knife better than any man. She paints beautiful flowering vines on the walls of her plaster houses. She sings so sweetly she can coax even a beast to sleep. But there are two things she is afraid her mother might never allow her to do: learn to read and marry." 

I think the reason why I liked this book so much was the characters. They are so wonderfully developed that I was able to connect with them and really felt like I could relate to them. My favorite was Rapunzel and Sir Gerek was a close second. Dickerson's writing of these two main characters really made me feel like I knew them and I was rooting for them from the beginning and trying to figure out the story through all of the twists and turns. 

Dickerson is just as good at writing villains. Gothel, Rapunzel's mother, and a couple of the other characters, we're so terrible I found myself getting upset with them. Dickerson's bad guys are bad and her descriptions of them were very vivid. 

I found it masterful how Dickerson weaved elements from the classic Rapunzel story in with her own ideas. There were just enough elements that were kept the same so that there was no doubt as to which fairy tale it was taken from. But the story was so different that it kept me guessing and reading till the last page.

One added aspect that I really enjoyed was how much dependence the main characters had on God. I found it to be very encouraging to see how these characters demonstrated faith in the midst of great trials. 

I did receive this book free in exchange for my review - however these are my own true opinions.