Water Song

Hello all, picked up an extra shift at the station last night so if this rambling is a bit more rambely then usual, that may be why...or I'm just in an extra rambley mood (spell check hates me right now).  Today's rambely ramble is on Water Song by Suzanne Weyn and is a retelling of The Frog Prince.  This book is part of the "Once Upon A Time" series (not the TV show) that has various authors "re-tell" classic fairy tales in a short book form.  This has kind of been a hit or miss series for me, some of the books are amazing, some are ok and some flat out don't make any sense.  For me this was one of the ok ones, as always SPOILERS AHEAD.

Emma is a wealthy British girl who has found herself trapped at her families estate in Belgium as World War I, or The Great War as it was called then rages on around her.  Her mother has died in a bombing, leaving Emma and two Flemish speaking servants stuck until her father can get to her. While trapped, Emma receives a letter from her beau back in England essentially breaking up with her. In a fit of rage Emma throws her gold locket with his picture in it down the well. Meanwhile a young American Jack Verde who has joined the British Army has been caught in a chlorine gas attack and has stumbled into the well on Emma's property as a way to rinse of the burning gas.  Emma regrets her impulsive decision to throw her locket away as it is not only a family heirloom, but it contains the pictures of her parents.  She decides to go down the well to look for her locket and discovers Jack, barely able to cling to the ladder in the well.  While they are down there German soldiers come and pull them out, using some quick thinking, Emma tells the soldiers that Jack is her American husband and that they both live at the manor (this is before the Americans joined the war).
 The Germans take over the manor, using it as a base of operations and lock Jack and Emma in her parents bedroom.  Emma and Claudine help nurse Jack back to health, along with the help of Jack's spirit dreams in which he sees his deceased mother who had a gift for healing and spells.  When Jack wakes up he and Emma engage in a constant stupid poor boy vs spoiled rich girl spat (which quickly gets annoying). As Jack reveals his history, a life in the Louisiana bayou, mother dying young, time in a home for boys, and his decision to join the British army, he tells Emma that he can hold his breath for a very long time. A couple pages later Jack is demanding a kiss and the promise of true friendship in return for getting her locket out of the well. Insulted that he would ask her for a kiss she decides to go find the locket herself.  Her foot gets stuck in a crevice while she is under water and she is saved by a mysterious giant frog man. Jack reveals that he is in possession of the locket and gives it to her, he then reminds her of the pact, telling her she has to be his true friend and that she owes him a kiss, which she refuses to give.   Meanwhile the German soldiers tell Emma that if she wants to keep herself and Jack alive, she will need to spy on the villagers when she goes into town for food.  Emma feeds information that she knows is common knowledge to the soldiers, keeping her from turning traitor.  She makes an attempt to escape, but her promise makes her come back to try and help Jack.  At this point some Allied soldiers are captured, including Kid, a young soldier who fought with Jack.  Kid is wounded by a bullet and Jack goes back into his spirit dreaming to learn how to heal him.  Jack is successful.  At this point Jack and

Emma have fallen hopelessly in love with each other, but neither is willing to admit it.  Kid is taken away for questioning by the Germans and Jack finds a way to keep him alive even after he is shot again.  Later Emma helps him escape to a sympathetic farmhouse and he tells her about the giant frog man that saved him. Emma and Jack use a secret passage they find to eavesdrop on the Germans and decide to escape.  Jack thinks it is to dangerous for Emma and puts her to sleep with a potion.  She wakes up and goes after him, only to fall into a swamp.  Jack dives down and rescues her she kisses him and tells him she loves him, and then they are promptly chased by the Germans.  They run and Emma is shot in the arm and her head is grazed.  Jack makes a raft and they are rescued by the Allied force.  Emma joins the U.S. Army Signal Corps and finally joins Jack when the war is over.

I liked the idea of this book much more then I liked the book itself.  The historic context was pretty cool, and I have been into the WWI era, especially in Europe lately so this was right up my ally.  The writing itself however was pretty simplistic and rote.  I am not sure if it is because the book was so short, or this is just how the author writes, but the characters were severely underdeveloped.  Jack was probably the most talked about character, but his story had a weird mix of too much going on with not enough explanation.  Was he the son of a voodoo queen, an orphan, a champion swimmer, a man of mixed heritage, all this random super special stuff that just got shoved into random places.  Emma never got beyond the rich girl with rebellion issues, her "spirit and fire" came off as petulant and defensive until she fell hopelessly in love with a guy she knew nothing about after three days.  The rest of the characters in the book each had one tidbit that was supposed to set them apart, but no follow through.  There were some cool bits about what was going on during that time period, and it was nice not to have the Americans be the hero's for once.  Mostly I wanted less googly eyed reasons that they were so in love with the perfectness of each other for half the book and more of the story, which if had been more developed I think could have been awesome. The story also was a weird mix of repetitive (get caught, make up a story, fight/bicker, fall in love, sneak out, lather, rinse, repeat) seriously the sequence happened at least three times before the end of the book. The author did get pretty much all of the major plot points of the original story in (the golden ball down the well, the petulant princess, the frog "prince", sharing the bed with the frog), but even some of those felt like a stretch on occasion.  Overall I think more story and less lovey dovey would have made this a better book.  I give it 5 out of 10 golden balls.

What is your favorite retelling?  Do you like it when they use a historical setting to re-tell a fairy tale or do you prefer a magical one?  Do I expect way to much out of short young adult novels?