Fairest

Cursed 

I am reading Fairest by Chanda Hahn. It is the sequel to Unenchanted in the Unfortunate Fairytale series. Mina Grimm is cursed. She is a descendant from the Brothers Grimm and the Grimm curse has passed onto her. It is said that the Brothers Grimm wrote their fairytales based on their experiences from their quests. The brothers had to solve these quests as they had made a bargain with the Fae, that if all the quests were completed, the Fae would have to leave the human world forever. The brothers did not finish all the quests, and whenever a Grimm doesn't finish, the quests (starting from the beginning again) will be passed on to the next Grimm. Finally, the curse fell on Mina, and to ensure that her little brother doesn't have to face these deadly quests (they are very similar to the fairytales written by the brothers, but they are missing the happy endings) she is determined to finish and survive. She has already completed a number of quests with the help from a magical book called the Grimoire, and a mysterious boy named Jared (whom she is easily irritated by). Mina despises the curse, but she refuses to tell her best friend Nan about it or Brody, the boy she likes, for if she did, as she had in Unenchanted, the curse would put them in danger, and after a main quest, they would never remember about the curse, or what happened while the quests took place, at all. 

I wonder how it would be like, to be cursed by fairytales. It seemed amusing to me at first, but as I continue to think about it, I believe experiencing real-life fairytales (all of them determined to prevent a happy ending) would be terrifying. For in fairytales, there are many things that would make no logical sense. And if I could not use logic to solve such fairytales, how would I solve them at all? 

I felt sorry for Mina, as her life is far from normal. But what amazes me is her character and personality. She does not seem like a heroic character at all. Perhaps it is the love for her young, mute brother that keeps her determined to survive. Her desperation to keep her loved ones safe made her brave. I like how she changes throughout the book, how she sometimes breaks down and wishes she could just run away. These flaws and desperate times make her easy to relate to, for everyone wants to run away from their problems sometimes. And despite her curse, she still tries to be a normal teenager with her best friend, and this is saddening for she carries such a burden while almost everyone around her truly defines the phrase "ignorance is bliss". I also like how sometimes, she becomes jealous of her friend's ignorance, and others' normal lives as the text says: "For once, Mina was a little jealous of Nan... She was jealous of Nan's ignorance. She didn't have a family curse hanging over her head and threatening to take away her life." as well as this: "Mina's fingers dug painfully into her text book and she quickly put her head down and kept moving through the hall, hoping he didn't see her staring at him. How was this fair? Why could everyone, even Jared carry on and have a normal life except for her." It's strange how some people wish for an adventure or quest to take place, while others, like Mina, would much rather not but don't have a choice as the quest is forced upon them.