East by Edith Pattou

Basically, this is a re-telling of an old fairy tale--East of the Moon and West of the Sun I do believe (I may have mixed up the order there). The story mostly focuses on a girl named Rose and a mysterious white bear. A mysterious white bear that can talk, and looks somewhat intelligent. Not to mention acts very un-white-bear-like. Rose ends up going with him to save her sister (he offers to bring good fortune to her family if she goes with him) and ends up at a castle-y place where she has no idea what she's supposed to do. The story is told from several different perspectives (way too many in my opinion. I think it is a tad bit repetitive--in the beginning at least--and seems like a way to avoid having to give insight into each person's--or bear's, as the case may be--character and thoughts.) Anyways, I will say however, that it is quite interesting, if somewhat unconventional, in several respects.
First of all, the bear's thoughts are done in short, poetic chapters. It creates a very nice effect and reflects his struggle quite well (you'll have to read it to figure out which struggle I mean). I also thought the birth-direction-reflects-personality bit was interesting though I didn't totally love it. It adds an element of pre-determined fate and seems to me like a way to avoid having to portray characters' personality through description. Nonetheless, it's something I'd never seen before and it's possible that it was also a part of the original story. I felt like it should have been much longer. It was lacking a lot of the detail needed to make it seem that time passes and what makes these sorts of adventure books so interesting to me. I feel like it falls somewhere between a summary and a story due to the lack of details and it felt like it covered a few weeks rather than several years. The very beginning is also never tied up (it starts with a random girl finding a box containing the story). I found that in particular to be quite unnecessary and it could have been away around some sort of difficulty thinking of how to start the book (the characters' accounts began with things like 'I'm not quite sure where to start' and other similar things, making the beginning only a means to get to the story rather than having any real significance, especially without a return to it in the end). It also left me with lots of question that I feel would have been explained if the story were more detailed.
While I did enjoy reading it, I think East is best read by those who want a quick read and don't care for too many details.
Next I'll be writing about a spin off of Robin Hood.