Rapunzel’s Revenge by Shannon Hale

Take Rapunzel and plunk her down smack-dab in the middle of a Louis L’Amour book and you have the gist of this fun graphic novel.

The framework of Rapunzel is here. Hungry mom, eager-to-please dad, evil witch, girl with crazy-long hair in a tower. But that’s about where the similarities end. See, Rapunzel doesn’t want a prince to come along and rescue her. Oh, no. She wants revenge. And she’s perfectly capable of serving it up all by herself, thankyouverymuch.

This was a lot of fun, and I can’t give a real reason for knocking it back to three stars. Maybe it just veered a little too far away from the original? Or maybe Rapunzel was unrealistically self-sufficient? The girl was locked away in a tower for years, but she can kick some ass without even thinking about it. Now that I’m thinking about it more, it jumped around a little too much. Of course Rapunzel has lots of adventures, but there was nothing in between. It just jumped from castle to tower to town to ranch with very little transition. I think that’s what bothered me the most. And Rapunzel’s hayseed way of talking got a little old.

There was a lot that I did like though. I liked that Rapunzel was a strong young woman. Her partner-in-revenge, Jack, was a charming rake. He doesn’t think too much about stealing to get by, but Rapunzel knocks some morals into his head. I mostly loved the illustrations, although I never looked at them quite the same way after my husband asked me, in all seriousness, “Why is there a string of sausages on the cover of your book?” I liked that we got an explanation for the extraordinary length of Rapunzel’s hair. I liked that Rapunzel’s revenge wasn’t just about her personally, it was about her family and returning balance to the place where she lives.

It’s a quick, fun read and I’ll get around to the sequel some day.

Find author Shannon Hale on her website, her blog, Twitter, and Facebook.

Find co-author Dean Hale on his website and Twitter.

Find illustrator Nathan Hale on his website, his blog, and Twitter.

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