The Grimm Legacy

Just a heads up if you are thinking of purchasing this........Kindle version text is pale grey and, for me, makes it almost unreadable. Problem is not my Kindle, other books are ok. Have tried restarting Kindle, deleting and redownloading book but this didn't help. I'm told that it is due to the way the book has been formatted by the publisher, would not have purchased had I been aware of this, have given up on the book as it's too unpleasant to try to read.

This book happily fits alongside the likes of the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan, as well as the Librarian films. Elizabeth is a misfit but her teacher recognises something special in her after she helped a homeless woman and wrote an essay about the Grimm brothers. He arranges a job interview for the 14-year-old at the New York Circulating Material Repository, a slightly unbelievable library-like place full of historic objects, such as Marie Antoinette's wig, which people can borrow - but some things never get returned.Elizabeth gets to work alongside her school basketball hero, Marc, and Anjali from the local girls' private school, as well as Aaron, a scowling teen her age who doesn't approve of her but has a crush on Anjali. Mix teen angst, an unhappy home life, missing people and goods in a magical place and you've got adventures. I loved the mirror from Snow White which takes great delight in feeding off the teenagers' insecurities.It's a fun read. I love the setting and it's got room to develop into a long series, complete with a monstrous bird who might be involved in Elizabeth's predecessor's disappearance. You definitely don't have to be a teen to enjoy it!

Actual Rating: 3.5Elizabeth is just your usual nerdy schoolgirl, until she lands herself a job at an unusual lending library that deals in objects. Among the antiques and collections of spoons, there is a basement full of exciting and interesting objects. One collection catches Elizabeth's attention though: The Grimm Collection, objects with magical qualities that were collected by the Grimm brothers themselves.This is a definite teen read, but also one that can be enjoyed by adults who have a vested interest in fairytales. The content is mostly about friendship and romance, but there is a good mystery here as to who is stealing the Grimm Collection and why. You have a feeling about who it is, but really you can't guess for sure until the moment is already on you. As the book surrounds a mystery, I would have liked some more investigation into it, and that is fairly sparse. It would have elongated the book and made it a bit more engaging for me.This book centres around the objects in the Grimm Collection, so it stand to reason that you must know a little bit about fairy-tales. The research into this is really good, and I liked the way it was not just the well-known fairy-tales that were used. It really made me want to pick up my book of tales and flick through it, because some of the stories sound really interesting to read. Although this story is about fairy-tale magic, there are other collections in the dungeon that interest me, such as The Wells Bequest. This is actually dealt with in the companion book of the same name so I think I shall be reading that at some point.So with the characters, I thought Elizabeth was great. She is pretty normal and kind of nerdy, reminding me of myself in the way that she is kind of proper in some ways. However, I didn't find myself invested in many of the other characters. Their personalities were good and quite realistic, but I found them also to be bland. This meant that when things did happen to them, I didn't really care. I did fins Aaron intriguing and I definitely enjoyed reading about Jaya the most although she did have a smaller part to play.There was a little bit in the way of themes, with trust being the most prominent. Friendships and responsibility are also high on the list, but there weren't made too obvious.I quite liked the way that the items were deposited for. Since the items were magical, instead of money you would deposit a part of yourself; your firstborn child, your sense of humour or smell. It's kind of creepy when this actually happens and it makes the characters realise that even the smallest parts of them are important and it honestly makes you value things you didn't realise you should, like a sense of direction.This is my kind of book, and I am now even more interested in antiques and workmanship. It's a good read, but needed a bit more guts to it. Perfect for teens and lovers of fairy-tales.

I loved this and read it in an impossibly short length of time just because I was enjoying it so very much. It is clearly aimed at a YA audience, but that said, I'm in my 40s and I still loved it. There's quite a bit going on once you get past all the teenage angst, etc, and if you love fairy tales then you will enjoy all the clever references to them in this novel. Elizabeth, the main character, isn't a particularly convincing teenager (she's likeable and far too normal for a start) and all of the references to magic are swallowed far too easily to be credible as well - but if you can overlook that (and in a novel about fairy tales, you really have to suspend disbelief somewhat) then this is a very entertaining read. Not great literature, but easy to read and a bit of entertainment.

My son and I read The Wells Bequest, which is the next in the series to this book, first. In some ways I wish we hadn't. We enjoyed the Wells Bequest so much we finished it in a week. This book was slightly less engaging and it has taken us months to finish it. It has flashes of the greatness of the sequel, but is much more long winded and slow, with the action only really kicking off in the last hundred pages. It seemed really uneven and at times quite dull until it got into stride. We say read it because it gives you back story for the second book, but read it quickly and get onto the Wells Bequest as soon as you can. It's much, much better.

This made for an interesting read. Interesting in that it was a good take on the fairy tales and the Brothers Grimm legacy.That said, I felt that at times this book was a bit slow and meandering. Elizabeth, the main character, I felt was a bit naive and too trusting. She seemed to accept everything she was told a bit too easily without too much questioning. I found it hard work in that it wasn't quite as good as it could have been and moved at a snails pace with everything being wrapped up too easily. The bad guys weren't overly believable or sinister, or even that threatening.Oh, well, it made for an interesting read though.