see http://www.sfsite.com/12b/eh214.htm ( )

Very, very loosely based on the Rapunzel tale - in fact, it's so loosely based on the tale that if I hadn't seen it mentioned elsewhere I don't think I would have gotten the connection. Megan attends an English boarding school in the 1960's where she lives in a tower room with 2 other students. A young male teacher is hired and shortly after his hiring he develops an attachment to Megan. He comes to her tower room for trysts and likes to unbraid her long blond hair and run his hands through it (there's your Rapunzel connection).

I liked that the book was short and a very quick read. I liked the setting. I just didn't really believe the romance and the ending of the book was very unsatisfying. Like the author just got tired and ended it. I know that there are two more books after this one and perhaps they will clear things up, but the book just didn't leave me curious enough about Megan to find out what happens to her in the other two books.

I REALLY disliked the romanticizing of a relationship between a student and a teacher. Yes, they are very similar in ages. BUT, teachers are adults and need to act responsibly. And his actions were not responsible. ( )

The Tower Room is the first in the Egerton Hall series which centers around three girls who are best friends at boarding school. Each book in the series is a retelling of a different fairytale. The first book is The Tower Room. In this book, the author has reworked the fairytale "Rapunzel" into a 20th century young adult romance.
Megan, Bella and Alice are sixth form students at Egerton Hall. They occupy what is known as “the tower room”, where they enjoy privacy and seclusion from the other students. Each girl has a unique personality and can be quite precocious, but they don't seem to have the snobbery that so often accompanies these characters.
The Tower Room focuses on Megan, who calls Egerton Hall "home" as she was orphaned not long after arriving at age 11. Egerton Hall's science teacher -Dorothy, a family friend - adopts Megan. The girls go about their lives as students with the hopes and dreams every girl has of becoming young women: thoughts of love and their adult lives ahead of them. When Dorothy hires a young and available lab assistant, it appears Megan's dreams of love might come true.
What makes this novel unique is that the main storyline is interspersed with paragraphs containing letters written by Megan following the denouement. These letters show the reality of life and seem to emphasize the idea of fantasy within the fairytale portion of the story. It really gives a nice contrast. Equally unique is the ending (which I loved) with its twist on the idea of what constitutes "happily ever after".
I really enjoyed this book. Ms. Geras's writing flows so well you don't realize how quickly the pages are turning. Her characters are interesting and I am looking forward to following them through the other books in the series: Watching the Roses and Pictures of the Night. ( )

I read all three of the Egerton Hall novels Saturday. They are that short, and they were that easy to read.

"The Tower Room" is a Adéle Geras's retelling of Rapunzel, set in the early sixties in an English boarding school. All three of the novels in this series are tied together, as the three heroines are friends and classmates.

My favorite part of reading various interpretations of fairy tales is finding the well-known pieces of each classic story strewn throughout the new version. I like it better when they're subtle, because it makes me feel smart, heh. They are definitely not subtle in Geras's reworkings, but the read was still enjoyable enough.

It's hard to review one book in the series and not review all of them at once, as they are intertwined in several ways, but "The Tower Room" was probably my least favorite of the three. I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that all the background for the series was set up in this book, which slowed it down quite a bit.

Also, I was hoping the "love at first sight" bit in "The Tower Room" would be an isolated incident, because it just seemed dumb, but no, it repeats itself in all three books. (Is that a spoiler?)

Anyway, yeah, it's a retelling that's a bit ham-fisted and probably better suited for younger readers, but it's likeable enough that I finished it in a couple of hours and moved straight into the next book in the series. ( )