Have you ever discovered a book and afterwards wondered, “How am I just now reading this?”

Well that’s what happened when we opened up The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale. It was recommended by a fellow Instagram bookwyrm and we immediately reserved it from our local public library. Once we had it, we stayed up late into the night for two days in a row just because we had to know what happened next!

If you’re not familiar with the original tale, The Goose Girl is based on a German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. In it, a princess travels to a foreign kingdom to meet her future husband, who is the prince of that land. On the way the princess loses a token given to her by her mother to guard her on her travels. Stripped of her only protection, the princess finds herself at the mercy of her handmaid, who forces her to switch roles and to promise never to reveal the truth. When they arrive in the new kingdom the princess is turned into a goose girl and sent to guard the foreign king’s flock while false princess does everything in her power to secure her new position.

But, like all fairy tales, eventually the truth comes to light and everyone gets what they deserve.

Turning a fairy tale into a full-size book

The original Goose Girl is very short, so we couldn’t wait to see how Shannon Hale was going to expand her nearly 400-page retelling. More importantly, we wanted to know how closely she kept to the original story.

I’m happy to say, this story is one of the best stories I’ve read this year. Ms. Hale creates a very rich world filled with very real conflict and trouble.

As the crown princess of Kildenree, Princess Ani, feels very isolated and out-of-place among her own people. Her father loves her, but she continually feels like she’s a disappointment to her mother. Truth be told, she’s more comfortable talking to animals than people. However, the traits that make her an outcast among her people are exactly the skills she’ll need to escape multiple assassination attempts, blend in with the forest people from the kingdom of Bayern, and raise an unlikely army to save not only her kingdom, but the people of Bayern as well.

How does it hold up?

Knowing the original story made reading The Goose Girl more fun for me because I knew certain things were going to happen. I just didn’t know how. But, if you aren’t familiar with the Brothers Grimm version, you won’t be missing out on a thing. This is one story that stands on its own two feet!

Each of the characters feel like they’re living, breathing people—even the ones you don’t want to like. The writing is very colorful and the story is told in a way that it plays out like a movie in your head. The story has just the right mix of action, adventure, suspense, and romance to appeal to both girls and boys around eleven or older.

Younger readers might have a little difficulty with some of the words and some of the scenes might be a bit scary, so parents should probably read it first just to be safe.

I give The Goose Girl five out five dark chocolate eggs. Which is a first on my blog. We have to return our borrowed copy to the library, but we’ll also be adding it to our bookshelf at home. I haven’t read the other three books in “The Books of Bayern” series, but based on what some of our Instagram friends say about them, I can’t wait to see what happens next!

Where to find it: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and of course, don’t forget your local library and independent bookstore!

Note: No goods or services were exchanged for this review. The opinions belong solely to the reviewer.