Entirely fun and engaging. While fairly typical for a fairy tale retelling, I cannot help myself, I love them. I do think all the main characters of every one I've read are the same, with a spunky, driven female lead and a quiet, mysterious man (or bear or whatever). I did get bogged down in the middle, the journey through the arctic was tedious, but the story overall was good. ( )

Beauty and the Beast but make it Scandinavian.

The premise was good (and, well, that’s the Beauty and the Beast part, honestly), but the method was…not. It dragged. It was a slog. And I think it wouldn’t have felt so overly-long if the characters had been given any amount of personality. I mean, any at all. They feel like cardboard people flatly carrying out the action of the plot, which, in itself, had no real zest to it, plodding along with a ‘this happened and then this and then this’ vibe. No tension, no surprising elements, no depth to be found anywhere. Blech. ( )

Classic fairy tale "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" is transplanted to 16th-century Europe for a story about cartography, weaving, and trolls.

East is filtered through multiple voices: some of these perspectives make sense (the heroine, the bear, the troll queen); some of them are less explicable (Rose's father and brother, who do little of note). The book does a nice job of grounding fairy-tale archetypes and conventions into a realistic setting, but it doesn't do anything particularly innovative or radical with the material. I craved pulpier thrills, but East tends more to the mellow and low-key. ( )

I enjoyed this book a lot. I had not been familiar with “East of the Sun, West of the Moon,” the Norwegian fairy tale on which it is based, but I soon discovered that a number of authors have done their own re-telling of the story. I very much like Pattou’s version. Relatable, well-drawn characters in a story that moves along nicely.

I did notice something about the language that the Trolls speak. It’s Finnish. I wonder why?

Or maybe I’ve got that wrong, and modern Finns actually speak Trollish? ( )

Of all of the versions of this legend I have read, this is by far my favorite. Mixed feelings, regret and joy follow the characters throughout this epic talke. I recommend it highly. ( )