MystGrrl Reviews

Reckless by Cornelia Funke

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Personally I love re-written fairy tales but even I know there are only so many ways a story can be told before it begins to wear thin. Which is why Reckless is such a refreshing story. It's not a re-written fairy tale but a new tale of love, adventure and danger in a land of magic, where the tales we thought we knew like the back of our hand have a life of their own.

When Jacob Reckless was a child his father all of a sudden disappeared with no trace. Angered by his father's abandonment, his mother's helplessness and his younger brother's endless dependency, Jacob often escaped to his father's locked study to get away from it all. What Jacob never expected to find was a new world of magic and adventure through the mirror, where both myth & legend come to life. As the years went by Jacob finds a new home and friends in the strange, dangerous Mirrorworld and is now a renowned hunter of treasures. A glass slipper, a golden ball, a golden tree, a wishing table; the tasks he undertook were never to dangerous to discourage Jacob and his shape-shifter companion Fox.

But when his younger brother Will unwittingly follows Jacob into the mirror, the carefully constructed wall between the life he left behind and the life he created in the Mirrorworld comes crashing down like glass. Infected by a Goyle, a race of humanoid creatures with hard skins made of semi precious stone (think the Thing from the Fantastic Four) that are at War with the humans in the Mirrorworld, Will is slowly becoming the mythical Jade Goyle that is much sought after by the Dark Fairy, mistress to the Goyle King & hunted for what he is turning into by the humans. If that isn't bad enough Clara, Will's girlfriend, also crosses into the Mirrorworld and further complicates matters in more ways than one. It's now a race against time to save Will from the Dark Fairy's curse as the Jade takes over his body and himself, for in the Mirrorworld not every tale has a happy ending...

If someone had transplanted the young Indiana Jones into a wonderland where myth and fairy tales were common place, Reckless would be it. In this dark tale adventure, danger and romance all make an appearance in this book with a big dash of magic. When I first started reading the book I wasn't quite sure exactly what was going on... but once I got past the initial stage I really got into it and seriously could not put it down. It's a unique story but the ending left me hanging. I really hope there's a sequel.



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