Author: Christopher Krovatinn
Genre: fairy tale retelling
Similar books: All Our Pretty Songs by Sarah McCarry
Sweetly by Jackson Pearce
Rating:
 |
| a darker version of a familiar story |
Summary (provided by publisher): Nine years ago, Fiona was just a kid. But everything changed the night the Pit Viper came to town. Sure, he rid the quiet, idyllic suburb of Hamm of its darkest problems. But Fiona witnessed something much, much worse from Hamm's adults when they drove him away.
And now, the Pit Viper is back.
Fiona's not just a kid anymore. She can handle the darkness she sees in the Pit Viper, a DJ whose wicked tattoos, quiet anger, and hypnotic music seem to speak to every teen in town…except her. She can handle watching as each of her friends seems to be overcome, nearly possessed by the music. She can even handle her unnerving suspicion that the DJ is hell-bent on revenge.
But she's not sure she can handle falling in love with him.
My opinion: When authors retell the story of the Pied Piper, they usually focus one one of two elements: the Piper's motivation or the mechanics by which he steals the children. Krovatin examines both of these ideas. We're presented with a Piper who's motivated by revenge and an increase in power. He also must follow the whims of a master. Krovatin also gives a lot of real estate to the motivations of the villagers. We see the fear that drove the original deal, their desperation and the need to protect their children from "bad elements". It's a desperation that leads them to offer that which they cannot give, so they betray their deal, sealing their eventual fate. As the plot becomes more complex, though, these complexities become more shadowy. We're introduced to a sort of magic, some elemental universal force that has twisted the piper into a dark force. But that exploration is pretty surface. This mythology takes us out of the real world into dark forces that are harder to relate to as a modern reader.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.
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