Age Group: Young Adult
Genre: Paranormal
Release Date: January 27, 2014
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Book Description:
Hannah Adler had wished for more attention from her father, but not at the cost of leaving everything she loved behind. The mountains of Hinsdale, Colorado was not where she’d imagined spending her senior year, but with her father accepting the inspector position at the Golden Wonder gold mine, she had no choice but to make the best of it.
It’s not as if the friends, she didn’t have, would miss her. Life had been lonely sincelosing her mother almost five years ago, and now was her chance to start letting her heart heal once and for all.Jake Bear had his nickname for a reason, but it wasn’t one that Hannah would have ever suspected.
There was a secret buried in those sable colored eyes, and withsomething lurking in the woods behind her new home, Hannah was almost sure he knew more than he let on.He only wanted to protect her, but from what…?
"Goldilocks" by Patria L. Dunn was a lot of fun for me. I love authors that make their own story out of classic folklore and fairy tales that we all know and love in order to create something completely new. Dunn has done that with this book.
While this story still revolves around a blonde leading lady, contains three bears, and that certain blonde at one point accidently stumbles into their house, Dunn has breathed a new story into "Goldilocks.” Our blonde is named Hannah, a high school senior who has recently moved to small town with her father after only living in the big city. Living in the woods is completely foreign to her, and she must learn to adapt and find a routine that is "just right" in order to make herself happy.
Hannah certainly starts to enjoy herself a little more in her new surroundings after meeting her mysterious classmate, Jake Bear. Jake keeps to himself for the most part, but as soon as he and Hannah meet, they seem to form a connection that neither one of them can ignore. Hannah slowly puts together what is different about Jake, and has to learn how to deal with all of the knowledge that comes with knowing his secret.
One thing that took some getting used to while reading was the head hopping that went on. There were multiple point of view switches, and sometimes they got confusing. Instead of just switching points of view at the beginning of a chapter or in another clear way, Dunn would switch in the middle of the scene for a paragraph or two and then go back to the original perspective. We got scenes from Hannah, Jake, and both of their fathers, and at points, it was a lot to take in.
Through the points of view changes (mostly Hannah's and Jake's), the reader gets to see both sides of the story. While Hannah is living a (mostly) normal life, Jake is hiding this huge secret from the rest of the world. Instead of giving us a bunch of exposition or a lengthy explanation in some other way, Dunn just lets the reader see it while the story is being told from Jake's point of view. By doing this, we get to see more of the big picture until Jake and Hannah's worlds collide in a way that everything ties up together.
A part of the story that I thought was really cool was the background information that Jake told Hannah. Through Jake's heritage, Dunn has constructed this new creation story that explained how mankind was really formed, and I loved it. Not only is she making something new about the "Goldilocks" story, but Dunn is also making a new story about how we came to be here. While out of context, Jake's story might seem farfetched, it made sense in the story and in this world that Dunn had created.
I would definitely recommend "Goldilocks,” even to those who aren't big fans of fairy tales like I am. Although it's a new spin on the classic, the story is different enough to be something completely unique and all its own. Instead of a girl wandering from porridge to porridge, we have a teenager adjusting to new life and being thrown into a supernatural adventure that she never saw coming.
Patria Dunn-Rowe hails from the small town of Louisa Virginia. Born in 1981, a true child of the 80's; her interest range from classic to unimaginable. While The Gifts is her first work, it certainly isn’t her last, with the second book in the series, Signs & Wonders coming next followed by Revelation. A young woman with many talents and many titles such as: Pianist, Author, & most importantly Mother, if you ask about her accomplishments she will tell you: "The best is yet to come."
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