Parenthetical.net

During the school year, I mostly read for work: how will I know what to give my kids if I don’t tear through as many YA novels as possible? Consequently, I almost never read sequels; I got enough of a taste with the first book, so I feel guilty if I linger. This summer’s reading project is to catch up on the sequels to some books I loved.

Julie lives a relatively normal middle school life in Northboro, MA (ooh, setting-I-recognize alert!)… except for the tangle of magical vines trapped under her bed. The vines are what’s left of the Wild, the fairy-tale forest that traps everyone it touches inside a story, stripping them of their free will and forcing them to reenact their story over and over. Julie’s parents, Rapunzel and her prince, led the charge to defeat the Wild five hundred years ago. Zel and a host of other fairy tale characters escaped, but the prince was left behind. In Into the Wild, the Wild escapes from under Julie’s bed and takes over Northboro.

At the beginning of Out of the Wild, everything is back to normal: the Wild is safely under Julie’s bed, Zel runs a hair salon, Julie’s “brother” (Puss in) Boots chases the Three Blind Mice… but then the Wild unexpectedly spits out Zel’s prince. The family is thrilled to be reunited, but Prince (as they decide to call him, “like the rock star”) can’t handle the modern world. He doesn’t understand why they have to keep their identities secret, so he immediately charges off to rescue damsels in distress, brandishing his sword and generally impersonating Prince Edward in Enchanted.

Unfortunately, “fairy-tale events” (like, say, rescuing poor still-sleeping Sleeping Beauty) feed the Wild. Someone is setting up Prince to complete as many fairy-tale events as possible, because it turns out that some fairy-tale characters prefer their happily-ever-afters to the modern world with its free will and heartbreak.

I adore Into the Wild. It was an easy sell for my kids, too — I put it on the middle school summer reading list, and I think half the seventh grade will have read it by September. It’s particularly appropriate for a girls’ school because of the clever way it turns the tired damsel-in-distress pattern of fairy tales on its head: Zel and Julie save the world by refusing to be saved by their princes, by refusing to be trapped by their destiny. (Secular humanist hippie stamp of approval!)

Spoilery for ITW and OOTW

Out of the Wild, I’m sorry to say, didn’t have much to add to the themes of its predecessor. It even detracted from Into the Wild’s message that you can’t expect happily ever after: at the end of ITW, Julie foils the Wild by wishing not for a perfect happy ending for her family (which would only have fueled the Wild), but for everything to go back to normal, troubles and all. At the end of OOTW, she transforms the Wild by a different wish — one that creates a fairy-tale utopia for world and Wild alike. Ta-da, you can have perfectly neat little endings if you have a Wishing Well! Duh. So much for tough choices.

Also, Prince never comes off as very bright. He fought the Wild; he knows that fairy-tale events fuel it. So when he sails off chasing his princely destiny with no thought for the consequences, it’s hard not to conclude that he left more than a few brain cells back in the Wild. I never figured out what Zel sees in him.

All that said, I like perfectly happy endings as much as the next person, and OOTW sure has a glorious one! If you enjoyed the formula of ITW and need more of the same, OOTW obliges.