Enchantment

Enchantment – Orson Scott Card

Evan’s ESS = 8 out of 10

Erin’s ESS = out of 10

Content = PG-13 (Adult Content, Violence, Noteworthy Kisses, Awkward Social Situations)

"The old tale of Sleeping Beauty might end happily in French or English, but he was in Russia, and only a fool would want to live through the Russian version of any fairy tale."

Why: As tempting as it is, we promise not to use any form of the actual title to describe the novel itself.  Instead, we’ll go in record and say that Enchantment was entrancing, enthralling engrossing, and dare we say enrapturing.   Whew, that was close...

When Ivan Smetski decides to enjoy an Enchanti invigorating jog in the woods he has no idea a parallel account of Sleeping Beauty (Russian style) is waiting right around the corner.  As it happens, Ivan stumbles across a mysterious sleeping girl and with one innocent kiss, transforms his life and her life forever.  Two very different centuries collide as the pair embark on an epic journey to bring stability to an ancient kingdom and peace of mind to a mother that wants her son to marry.  Needless to say there’s plenty of drama before happily ever after.  We mean IF there’s happily ever after...

This was our second experience with Mr. Card and following a novel as successful as Ender’s Game we didn’t know what to expect.  What we got was not at all what we expected yet in the end our experience exceeded expectations.  Make sense?  The bottom line: Enchantment is a highly intelligent fairy tale.  Philosophy, morality, cultural differences, and folklore all collide in this fun and exciting adventure.  Honestly, it felt a tad like Outlander.  Although, we really didn’t like Outlander (backlash expected) and we did like this novel, so maybe this is a bad comparison. 

We’re kind of all over the place with this review, but one of the features we enjoyed the most was seeing someone from our time period (assuming you’ve spent a majority of your life in the 21^st century) experience Medieval living and vice versa.  The reactions to each society felt real as did the frustrations and adjustments each character was forced to make.  We also enjoyed reading about the communication difficulties between Ivan and Katerina, which felt true for anyone trying to manage a relationship that spans across several centuries.  

Enchanting was in a word: Enchanting.  Sorry, the temptation was too great...