By Edith Pattou

As fairy tale retellings go, this is a good one. East is a more modern version of the fairy tale East of the Sun, West of the Moon. Other traditional versions are called Eros and Psyche and Beauty and the Beast.

The general synopsis of the fairy tale is that a white bear comes to a poor man’s house and offers him riches in exchange for his youngest daughter. The daughter agrees to the trade, and she is carried off into the mountains where she has to live with the bear for a year. If you don’t know the story, I won’t spoil it here, but not everything goes according to plan.

This is probably the best retelling I’ve read of this fairy tale, which is one of my favorite ever. Others include Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer and Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George. This one may not be the most faithful to the tale, per se, but it has the best plot overall.

My main problem with this book that knocked it down from five stars to four stars was the family. As it usually is with these stories, the family is horrible. You’re supposed to hate them. But usually, they go away within the first thirty pages. This family came back. Especially when the main character, Rose, was just getting into something good, then we would go back to the family’s POV. Which I hated.

My only content warning here is that the romance is more upped in this fairy tale than in others. It’s clean, but there is romance. Which is why I’m saying that this book is more geared towards older middle school and early high school (that’s when I read it).

General Stats:

• Genre: Fantasy (fairytale)
• Book 1 of 2
• Age: 8th grade and above
• My rating: ★★★★☆