East by Edith Pattou

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Young Adult
Genre: Historical Fantasy, Fairy Tale
Content: Strong Language



Rose has always been different.

Since the day she was born, it was clear she had a special fate. Her superstitious mother keeps the unusual circumstances of Rose's birth a secret, hoping to prevent her adventurous daughter from leaving home... but she can't suppress Rose's true nature forever.

So when an enormous white bear shows up one cold autumn evening and asks teenage Rose to come away with it--in exchange for health and prosperity for her ailing family--she readily agrees.



East is a retelling of East of the Sun and West of the Moon, a fairy tale similar to Beauty and the Beast. I had previously read Ice by Sarah Beth Durst and really liked it so I put this one on my list to read. It's been on my list for several years now and I'm glad I finally got around to reading it. There are some differences in the two retellings. This one is a historical fantasy where Ice was set in modern day. I liked that this book has a historical setting. There were some things about this book that I liked better than Ice , but some things I liked less. The main character Rose was easy to like and so was the love interest, but I do feel like the book lacked in that we don't get enough chapters from his point of view, so we don't get to know him as well as we could. I also feel that the author could have used less telling and more showing at times, especially when it came to the interactions between Rose and the bear.

Rose's mother was a very superstitious woman who was definitely not in her right mind and she was hard to like at times. There were some inconsistencies in the way her character is written and some of the things she did didn't make a lot of sense, although I suppose you could chalk it up to her being kind of crazy. I did really like that the book had multiple points of view and I thought they were well done. I liked Rose's brother Neddy a lot, although it took a while to see why his point of view was needed in the story.

After reading this book I kept thinking about it and the more I thought about it the darker it seemed. There are some things that happen that are rather disturbing if you think about them.

**The following paragraph contains spoilers. If you don't want to read them then skip down to the next one.


The troll queen is rather like a pedophile that kidnaps a little boy. She wants to keep him for herself and marry him one day. Her father turns him into a bear so she can't have him, but eventually after over 100 years of being under the spell she does have him. She is sleeping in the same bed as him, and though nothing is written about it, it does seem as though she is having her way with him while he is in a drugged stupor because at one point she says he is hers body and soul. Yikes!


**End of spoilers.



Overall this was a good read. It is a great standalone, but I'm considering reading the sequel West, even though I don't really think it was necessary. I recommend this if you like fairytale retellings.