UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale) [Kindle Edition]

Chanda Hahn (Author)

Book Description

Mina Grime is unlucky, unpopular and uncoordinated, that is until she saves her crushes life on a field trip, changing her High School status from loser to hero overnight. But with her new found fame brings misfortune in the form of an old family curse come to light. For Mina is descended from the Brothers Grimm and has inherited all of their unfinished fairy tale business. Which includes trying to outwit a powerful Story from making her it's next fairytale victim.

To break the fairy tale curse on her family and make these deadly occurrences stop, Mina must finish the tales until the very Grimm end.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"She's by far on of the loveliest and most talented authors I've read...Chanda Hahn is a rocks star for releasing UnEnchanted to the world". - A Hardback Life

"Writers like Chanda are showing traditional publishers that they're perfectly capable of achieving success on their own... she has a very imaginative and unique vision, and her books are different from all of the genre titles being published by the big houses right now."  - Lovestruck Literary

Product Details

• File Size: 331 KB
• Print Length: 230 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1475070306
• Publisher: Word Circus (December 30, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B006ROK1UM
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #135 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
  • #3 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Teens > Romance

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 71 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars An interesting idea, but the execution falters July 7, 2012

By Lizzy G. VINE™ VOICE

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

The premise and the gorgeous cover for UnEnchanted had me quite hooked, and I downloaded and started it in quick succession. And while it was a quick read, I found it didn't follow through on the promise.

Plot and Pacing: Now is a good time to be putting out fairytale twists - it's definitely popular - and I still really like the ideas behind this book. Descendants of Grimm fighting back against fairy tales out to kill them and move on to the next heir. A Story with its own ideas of how it wants things to end. And a twist at the end that I was quite happy to see. The pacing didn't quite match up, though. There's a little bit of action, a lot of talking, a little more action, a lot of storming about with angst, a quick finale, and then a cliffhanger ending.

Characters: For the most part, there isn't a lot going on. Mina is tough to get behind as a heroine because she spends most of the time telling us how unspecial she is, demanding that the hero can't possibly like someone like her, and flailing about it. She's kind of a doormat, to the point that her take-charge moments don't quite compute, and most of the book she just hopes for a boy to save her. We've got the nice, cute, rich popular guy who falls for her, and the requisite modern "bad boy" (read: gorgeous, arrogant, irritating with an emotional wall around him that no one (except the heroine!) can penetrate) who also falls for her. Both of these guys stay well-within their molds and spend most of their time swooping in to protect Mina, including dragging her places "for her own good." I think my favorite character was Nan, who started out a bit difficult to like as she seemed to exploit Mina's awkwardness for social media fame, but by the end of it, she seemed more real than any of the others, despite the fact that we spend almost no time in her head.

Writing Style: One of the biggest issues I had was the head-hopping - switching character POVs, sometimes from paragraph to paragraph with no warning. This wouldn't be so much of an issue except for the fact that the voice didn't change when the POV did. Instead of this being an effective method of looking at the plot from different angles, instead it was an excuse to flit around at random and flat-out tell the reader what the author wants you to know at any given time. In fact, we're told pretty much everything instead of being shown. The hero's feelings, the bad boy's feelings, why so-and-so is doing such-and-such - everything is explained to us point blank, which manages to kill much in the way of tension or mystery. Curbing both of these tendencies would allow room for the interesting ideas at the core of the book to breathe and flourish on their own.

I think this author has a very creative imagination and, with that, a lot of potential. The execution needs work, though, and I hope to see it improve in future projects.

89 of 106 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Great Concept, So-So Execution May 1, 2012

By Victoria Paszkiewicz

Format:Kindle Edition

I gave this book three stars because I thought that the idea behind it was great and a nice change from the usual. The overall story was good.

Had the concept not been so great, though, I probably would've only rated it at 1 or 2 stars. The number of errors in spelling, grammar and punctuation jarred me out of the story repeatedly.

217 of 265 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars full of errors, disappointing all around June 25, 2012

By Heather M

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I hate leaving negative reviews, but in this case, I feel like I have to speak up. I do not do this to cause hurt feelings - I appreciate that this book represents the writer's time and effort. But if time and effort were all it took for a book to be great, I wouldn't be writing a single-star review.

The idea of the book may have been interesting, and it's certainly timely, with tv shows and movies based on fairy tales popular right now. I can see why this sort of story came to the writer's mind. But an interesting premise is not enough. A good story requires well-drawn characters. None of the characters here have any real depth. They're shallowly-drawn; mere caricatures. They are unrealistic and uninteresting. Their voices are nearly interchangeable. When the point of view changes (as it does, repeatedly, without warning or need), it's actually difficult to determine whose perspective is given.

I tried to get past the undeveloped characters in the hopes that the idea itself would carry the book along, but I finally had to put the book (or rather, my Kindle) down. I could not finish reading.

Because no matter how good your idea is, the story you tell is NOT good when it's full of errors. And sadly, UnEnchanted is riddled with them. And I'm not talking about nitpicky little things that only an English teacher who loves red ink too much would find. I'm talking about errors that would have been caught by a run of grammar-check and spell-check on the author's computer. For example, the word "maked" appears around 15% of the way through. Or rather, that not-word. Even here on Amazon's review page, it's flagged as incorrect as I type. That was the last straw for me. For that, and similar errors throughout the first section of this book, there really is no defense.

If you're reading this, Ms. Hahn, I strongly suggest you do some research into the rules of written English. Buy a copy of Strunk & White's Elements of Style. Study it. Then write some more. Run spell-check. Then proofread, carefully. Find someone who can edit your writing. Take the time to get it right. Then, and only then, maybe you'll be able to take a good idea and turn it into a good story. I wish you luck.

More About the Author

Chanda Hahn takes her experience as a children's pastor, children's librarian and bookseller to write compelling and popular fiction for teens.
She was born in Seattle, WA, grew up in Nebraska and currently resides in Portland, Oregon with her husband and their twin children; Aiden and Ashley.

She just released Fairest, the sequel to UnEnchanted on June 1st.

Learn more about this author visit her website www.chandahahn.com

Follow her on twitter: www.twitter.com/chandahahn