Spelled

Storymakers Series, Book 1

By: Betsy Schow

Narrated by: Arielle DeLisle

Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

Fairy Tale Survival Rule number 32: If you find yourself at the mercy of a wicked witch, sing a romantic ballad and wait for your Prince Charming to save the day.

Yeah, no thanks. Dorthea is completely princed out. Sure, being the crown princess of Emerald has its perks - like Glenda Original ball gowns and Hans Christian Louboutin heels. But a forced marriage to the not-so-charming prince Kato is so not what Dorthea had in mind for her enchanted future.

Talk about unhappily ever after.

Trying to fix her prince problem by wishing on a (cursed) star royally backfires, leaving the kingdom in chaos and her parents stuck in some place called "Kansas". Now it's up to Dorthea and her prince to find the mysterious Wizard of Oz and undo the curse...before it releases the wickedest witch of all and spells the end for the world of Story.

©2015 Betsy Schow (P)2017 Tantor

tiresome and convoluted, not for me

Spelled is a backwards remake of The Wizard of Oz with many other characters, ideas, and even lines from nearly every other fairy tale. This version has some cute ideas that twist the original's plot. There are many clever puns or reworks of phrases that brought a chuckle, but I found the book tedious and difficult to finish. I read other books in between chapters of this because I didn't really want to read it. The events seemed to repeat themselves, and the ending seemed rushed and unexplained.

Teens may enjoy it, and adults who like this genre better than I do.

Great for teens, good for ya.

Good story, great performance. Definitely aimed towards tweens/teens but was still an enjoyable listen for me. More than the story, the worlds that were built from all kinds of fairytales are really nice, great imagery and every new tie in from another story is an exciting new piece to the puzzle, may get the second one for that alone.

Great story, a little hard to follow

I was looking for fairy tale retellings and I found this. Immediately this book made me laugh. It had some nice action in it, but over time it got confusing and a little hard to follow. Still it was fun to listen to and the villains in this were unique and very cunning. I was going to give the story 3 stars at first for being confusing, but once I heard the ending, I bumped it up t 4, cause I'm hoping that listening to the other 2 books will make the first book make sense when I look back on it and not make the story more confusing. What I enjoyed most about this story was that it had dungeons and dragons type references, like she is facing a mimic, something that doesn't appear in most fairy tales but would appear in a dungeons and dragons type story, and other villains. The action felt like a crossover between a few fairy tales and D&D, really enjoyed that. One thing I didn't like though was that Dorthea realized she was in a story, which in a way breaks a 4th wall. D&D characters don't realize they are in a game and fairy tale characters don't realize they are in a fairy tale, etc.

loved it....

if you love fairy tales this one will grab you... and at time make you wonder where they came up with some of the ideas.

Love this book i can’t wait for the next one

Love the voice I hope she is in the next couple books
She was perfect

I am absolutely obsessed with this retelling.

This is the best retelling of wizard of oz I have ever read. i couldn't stop listening to it. It was so gripping

Terrible

Go save yourself some time and just go flip through a Grimms fairy tale book reading random sentences and words until you get a story. You'll get a better result than this disaster.