Mother Knows Best
By Serena Valentino
Hi! This book is amazing! But, it is pretty scary. Like, 4 ghosts scary! So if you don’t like really scary books, then you probably shouldn’t read this one. It’s about a young girl who lives in the Kingdom of the Dead. The main character is Gothel. She lives in the Kingdom of the Dead with her sisters Hazel and Primrose. Gothel lives her life with her sisters, but knows there’s something else out there.
One day, she and her sisters have a ceremony with their mother in which they will take some of their mother’s blood in order to learn magic. But, Primrose doesn’t want to take her mother’s blood. But she tries to for Gothel’s sake. When they’re in the middle of the ceremony, Primrose decides that she really doesn’t want to take it. But Gothel’s mother desperately wants Primrose to take the blood. So she puts her hand, which has her blood on it, up to Primrose’s mouth. So Primrose is forced to take a tiny bit of her mother’s blood. Gothel’s mother gets so angry with the sisters for not wanting to take her blood that she starts hurting them through magic. And the only way that Gothel can get her to stop is by killing her mother. So Gothel’s mother passes onto the afterlife.
Primrose and Hazel suffer from being hurt by their mother. While they are sick, Gothel gathers three fairies together to try to restore them. But the sisters soon pass on into the afterlife because of the curse that their mother has laid upon them. Gothel desperately wants her sisters back, so she uses her rapunzel flower to try to restore them. A rapunzel flower is a flower that Gothel uses to keep young. But she cannot restore her sisters.
Very soon, the King’s men come and try to take the last thing that Gothel holds precious – her rapunzel flower. A friend of Gothel’s sends her to a cottage in a distant land so that she will be safe from the King’s men.
What will happen to Gothel? She’s already lost everything that she holds dear! Will the King’s men come and find her and take everything else from her? Or will something unexpected happen? As I always say, read the book to find out!
A few helpful things I like to say about the books I read:
“Run and Get Mom” (how I describe the scariness factor – zero being not scary at all and five being majorly scary): 4
“Yucky-Lovey Stuff” (how I describe the romance factor – zero having no yucky-lovey parts in it and five having major yucky-lovey parts): 0
I give this book 4 wands.
This book was amazing. It drew me in and explained some things that I never would have guessed about Rapunzel’s mother’s story. But it was really scary! So, if you don’t really like scary stories, please don’t try to read this book. I explained the story very lightly and the book explains things in a very dark way. So, I repeat, if you do not like scary stories, do not read this book!
