Review: The Storyteller by Antonia Michaelis

The Description

Anna and Abel couldn’t be more different. They are both seventeen and in their last year of school, but while Anna lives in a nice old town house and comes from a well-to-do family, Abel, the school drug dealer, lives in a big, prisonlike tower block at the edge of town. Anna is afraid of him until she realizes that he is caring for his six-year-old sister on his own. Fascinated, Anna follows the two and listens as Abel tells little Micha the story of a tiny queen assailed by dark forces. It’s a beautiful fairy tale that Anna comes to see has a basis in reality. Abel is in real danger of losing Micha to their abusive father and to his own inability to make ends meet. Anna gradually falls in love with Abel, but when his “enemies” begin to turn up dead, she fears she has fallen for a murderer. Has she?

Award-winning author Antonia Michaelis moves in a bold new direction with her latest novel: a dark, haunting, contemporary story that is part mystery, part romance, and part melodrama.

My Thoughts

*Breathes in*
*Breathes out*
*Releases a held-back scream*

There. That's much better.
No, no, don't run away yet. I know it looked like. Like I was seriously pissed off by the book. Well, a little maybe, but WAIT. This is me at the moment:



The Storyteller made me smile, yell, scream and even tear up. And do you know how often I tear up because of a book? You could count it on the fingers of a single hand. The Storyteller managed to earn a finger from my hand, just next to The Fault in our Stars. And everybody knows just how fan-freakin'-tastic that TFioS is.

The Storyteller (known from now as TS) accomplished certain things. The first being a very unique and different YA book. Sure, it does contain swear words, drinking and smoking, dancing at bars, bad boy and good girl, gah those stereotypes, but that's probably where it ends. Full stop. Whatever that goes beyond is a 180 degrees twisted turn.

Another accomplishment is that the author has woven reality and fairy tale together in a dark but beautifully twisted way. Unlike some people, I seem to not to have a gift to describe the book without giving spoilers away so I'll stop here.

To sum it up, TS was a darkly twisted tale of reality and fairy tale and very different from other YAs. It may make you cry, scream or smile, may or may not be your favourite book, but it definitely will leave some sort of impression on you.

Rating: 5/5 Stars