Fairest: An Unfortunate Fairytale. True to its title, this novel is one of the fairest of its kind. The only “unfortunate” part was the punctuation.

Fairest is the story of a 16-year-old girl, Mina Grime, who is under a family curse to live out each of the Grimm fairytales in our very own 21st century. Mina is a descendant of the original brothers Grimm, who made a deal with the Fae (mystical creatures) to play the role of a character in each fairytale – or die trying. As an added motivation for the Grimm to complete the tales, if he or she dies, the curse falls to the next living relative. Despite the fact that all the Grimms before her have failed, Mina makes decent headway in the novel.

Intriguing, right? Everyone loves a good fairytale, and modern twists on classic stories are all the rage in teen media. This work of fiction could take my top ten – if only it were legible.

I don’t know how to rationalize or explain it, but it seems that the author, Chanda Hahn, does not know how to properly use a question mark. In fact, she likes to stick one in a location just like this one? And a comma right, here. No, really … take a look at page 91: “But it is overcast and cloudy and we can’t even see the sun?” Even in context, this is not the proper place for the question mark to be making an appearance. Another prime example is found on page 84: “Hansel and Gretel looked inside and were tempted by all of the jewelry and money, the Grimms happened to have laid out on the table.”
Perhaps there’s a tragic story behind it all, a tale of Hahn furiously writing to just barely make her deadline, or writing with such passion that punctuation was flung to the wind. I’d love to hear it to boost my sympathy for her. In turn, I’d tell her my tragic story of happily cruising through her novel, accelerating through her masterful storytelling, only to swerve out of control and crash into a punctuation roadblock, and then attempt to pluck myself from the wreckage and climb back on her train of thought.
However, despite my criticism, don’t let these faults keep you from reading the novel by any means. Instead, take them as a warning to prepare you. I absolutely love Hahn’s story, and would recommend it to anyone – I simply wish it were a bit more coherent at some points. Give Hahn a good editor (and perhaps a bit more time to edit the work herself), and she could really make a name for herself. For now, I ask that you give Fairest a chance – just put away any grammar-Nazi tendencies first, keep your eyes out for context clues, and focus on the excellent story instead of the less-than-excellent punctuation.