Monday 5 March 2012

[REVIEW] Cloaked by Alex Flinn

Published: February 2011
Publisher: HarperCollins
Age Group: Young Adult
I’m not your average hero. I actually wasn’t your average anything. Just a poor guy working an after-school job at a South Beach shoe repair shop to help his mom make ends meet. But a little magic changed it all.

It all started with the curse. And the frognapping. And one hot-looking princess, who asked me to lead a rescue mission.

There wasn’t a fairy godmother or any of that. And even though I fell in love along the way, what happened to me is unlike any fairy tale I’ve ever heard. Before I knew it, I was spying with a flock of enchanted swans, talking (yes, talking!) to a fox named Todd, and nearly trampled by giants in the Everglades.

Don’t believe me? I didn’t believe it either. But you’ll see. Because I knew it all was true, the second I got CLOAKED (From Goodreads)


Cloaked is basically a modern fairy tale story. Johnny is an aspring shoe designer who works at his family's shoe repair shop at a hotel in South Beach in an attempt to try to make ends meet. Johnny and his mother are extremely poor and often the bills are left unpaid. When the princess from Aloria comes to the hotel on a "important, top-secret buisness", Johnny is introduced to a world of magic when she asks him to go on an adventure in an attempt to save her brother, who has been turned in to a frog, from the evil witch. Throughout the adventure, Johnny meets talking animals, is thrown in to a dumpster, has to kill two giants and almost dies, on more then one occasion. 

Alex Flinn mixes together quite a few classic fairy tales in to one story to create a modern twist of them. 

The story's plot is the classic, "damsel in distress", but it's still intersting considering it isn't the damsel in distress it's the prince. 

The character's aren't described as much rather their personality is shown through the dialogue and their interactions. 

The story does go quite quickly. One moment, he's in one location and then the next in some other location. Johnny spends about 1-2 chapters in one location at a time. He's always moving which makes it hard to be completly lost in the book but it was a good read. 

Johnny is your typical 17 year old boy and I think Alex Flinn does an excellent job describing him through his actions throughout the book. 

If your a fan of classic fairy tales then Cloaked is the book for you. 

4/5
(originally posted in the TPL Word Out program)

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