Fate Be Changed by Farrah Rochon - Review

Book Synopsis:

What if the witch gave Merida a different spell?

If you could change your fate, would you? Merida understands that as princess of Clan DunBroch, she has certain obligations—but that doesn’t mean she has to like it. Especially when one of those obligations means losing her freedom by becoming betrothed to a man she has never met. Merida balks at this tradition, but her mother Queen Elinor insists that Merida must do this to embrace her role as future queen.

Determined to chart her own path, Merida follows magical wisps to a witch’s cottage, where she is given a magic pastry and promised it will incite “a great transformation” in her mother. But instead of feeding Elinor the pastry, Merida eats it herself.

Merida awakens in the past, a now-teenage Elinor holding a knife to her throat and accusing her of espionage. She’s been transported to a time when the Clans MacCameron and DunBroch are bitter enemies. And it just so happens that the timing of Merida’s arrival has kept Elinor and Fergus from meeting.

Will Merida be able to bridge the rival clans, help her parents fall in love, and change her own fate?

My Review:

3/5 stars. I've read a few of the Disney Twisted Tales now. This wasn't the worst I've read, but it also wasn't my favorite. I mostly had problems with the pacing and the writing style. There were also a lot of aspects I liked, though. I enjoyed Merida's character development throughout the course of the novel. I also got a lot more invested in the second half of the book and wanted to keep reading to find out how it would all be resolved, despite the book's issues.

I love time travel stories, so the premise of this Twisted Tale really interested me. That whole concept continued to be the most interesting to me as I read. The stakes were high, since Merida wouldn't exist if she didn't get her parents together. I kept reading to find out what would happen.

Although I was invested much more in the second half, the first half of this book really dragged. It took me a long time to finish this novel -- enough time to read two other books at the same time -- because I wasn't engaged early on. It was really slow at first, which made me unmotivated to pick up the book.

This book had a lot of cliches, both in terms of plot and the writing itself. A main aspect of Elinor's personality was the whole "woe is me, I don't ever want to get married, I want to be independent and not wear tight clothing," trope. Not only is this the same attitude Merida has in Brave, it's also just very overdone and unrealistic for the historical time period. As for the writing itself, I noticed a lot of repetitive, cliche phrases, some which were repeated maybe 4 or 5 times from when I started to notice them.

Another writing style issue is that there was a bit too much telling instead of showing in multiple aspects. With the developing romance between Elinor and Fergus, there was a lot of "telling" of Elinor's feelings and beating it over readers' heads. The ending also had too much telling. It was basically giving an obvious explanation of what readers witnesses throughout the book, without needing it to be spelled out.

As for the characters and how movie-accurate they were, I thought the author did a good job of keeping the voice consistent for every character, except the witch. Elinor, Fergus, and Merida all felt accurate to what they were like in the movie. The witch, however, called Freya in this novel, was too nice. She didn't have the manipulative/trickster personality of the witch in the movie. She was a helpful side character instead of an antagonist.

There were some aspects I really enjoyed, though. I loved Merida's arc. She realized what life is like for servants and vowed to never treat her staff that way. It was also heartwarming to see her realize how kind and respectful her mother actually is, and understand why she is the way she is.

Content:

Language: None

Sexual Content: Descriptions of physical closeness, kisses not detailed

Violence/Gore: Some injuries but nothing described in detail

Drugs/Alcohol: None