Ogre Enchanted
by Gail Carson Levine
Hi! Have you ever felt disappointed about something? Well, Wormy sure has. He asked the girl he loved, Evie, to marry him. However, she kindly turned him down. They were just friends; that was all. A mean fairy was there when Wormy asked her to marry him. She gave the most horrible gifts. Lucinda, the fairy, was mad at Evie for turning Wormy down. So, she turned Evie into an ogre. She had 62 days to get someone to marry her, or else she would be an ogre forever.
Evie couldn’t stay in her house, because ogres were very dangerous, and the people would surely try to kill her if she stayed. She headed out to the Fens. That’s where all the ogres lived. Along the way, she met a handsome merchant named Peter. She thought that he saw her for what she truly was – a kind girl with the outer appearance of an ogre. Of course, he didn’t know she wasn’t actually an ogre. That was part of the fairy’s spell: Evie, and everyone who knew she was once a human, couldn’t say it. She stayed with them for a while, and one night, when she went out to steal meat sticks, the people in the house caught her. She was able to escape, and so they wouldn’t kill her, she kidnapped their master and then set him free once they were a few miles from the farm.
When she came back, Peter was gone and a giant was there. The ogres were trying to kill the giant! Evie saved the giant, and in doing so, she had to kill the ogres. She took the giant back to her home town (which was actually the size of a country!). Then, she went and stole some purpline from the dragons. Purpline is dragon saliva. It has many healing qualities, and since she was a healer, it was something she needed to save her patients.
With nowhere else to go, she returned to the house she had stolen the meat sticks from. At first they were frightened, but then they grew used to her, and she eventually grew to be like family to them. Then, the master’s grandson, Squire Jerrold, came. However, he was very sick – on the verge of dying! Squire Jerrold had barley blight. It’s a sickness that can kill you. Unfortunately, all of Frell (where the King lived) had it, too. Evie went there and she saved thousands of lives. She then became “friends” with the King, although he still feared her.
Evie is getting close to the point where she’ll be an ogre forever! Will she overcome the challenge of being an ogre and have someone propose to her? Or will she remain an ogre forever? 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): 3
“Yucky-Lovey Stuff” (how I describe the romance factor – zero having no yucky-lovey parts in it and five having major yucky-lovey parts): 2
I give this book 5 wands.
I LOVED this book! It showed courage, quick thinking, and the ability to keep evil at bay. If you love magic, mystery, and danger, this is the book for you!
Source: Review Copy
