Book Review: The Grimm Legacy by Polly Shullman

Out is out and shut is shut,

Turn the key and crack the nut,

Push the door and break the shell,

Let me in and all is well.

Say this password to open the book.

~*~

Elizabeth Rew had just lost her mother to an illness. She now lives with a distant father who still mourns his wife's death and his new wife isn't exactly 'friendly' towards Elizabeth. So are her new stepsisters.

Feeling lonely with a new family and without friends in a new town, she finds herself doing stuff to make keep her distracted.

When she aces a social studies paper by her History teacher, Mr.Mauskoppf on The Grimm Brothers, she was offered to work in a nearby repository as a page.

There, she met the quirky Dr. Rust who has interesting freckles that seem to have a life on their own. The beautiful Anjali whom every boy working in the repository pines for, the sarcastic sci-fi freak(but handsome -in the words of Miss Rew herself) Aaron, the tall and popular Marc Merritt-star of the basketball team and plain Elizabeth Rew(a certain talking mirror never fails to remind her) finds herself in quite an adventure because...

this repository loans out objects instead of books. China Vases, old boots that smell like bergamot and cinnamon, sandals that have wings at the heels and a table that gives food when requested. These are are all cool stuff but why are people there become shifty when asked about the very hushed Grimm Collection Vault? 

Elizabeth got more than she bargained for when she agreed to work in the repository - new friends, new knowledge, adventure and perhaps...something more as well.

Verdict: 5/10.

I find this a bit of a disappointment. I expected better of this. It's premise held so much of promise of it being a little different from it's other fantasy YA books but nope- this is your typical teenage kids going on an adventure and in the end the princess get hers prince, the bad guy is defeated in one page and they all lived happily ever after. Let's see...you have your plain-looking heroine with a great personality often overshadowed by her more beautiful and talented rival. A jock who obviously goes for the 'other girl' and the equally 'overlooked' handsome geek who obviously ends up with you-know -who. Okay, why did Miss Shullman made this so typical is beyond me because honestly, it had the potential to stem into something more creative and original. I am disapoint. It had so much of promise. The only interesting parts in this books are their explanation of the magical stuff and their function - that's about it really.

I don't know about you but I'd only read this book if I have time to kill.