Book Review ~ The Word Changers

Many thanks to Ashlee Willis of Finding the True Fairy Tale for the preview of her book, The Word Changers.  In exchange for the preview, I will review the book.

Her parents’ marriage is falling apart. Fifteen-year-old Posy feels her life is falling apart with it. Retreating to an old library down the street, she selects a mysterious book in a secluded corner and is magically drawn into its story...

Posy finds herself in a kingdom ruled by a cruel and manipulative king and queen who have attempted to usurp the role that belongs only to the Author of their story. The princess has fled and the kingdom is teetering toward rebellion. Posy is joined by the Prince Kyran as they fight with the characters of the story against their slavery to the Plot.

Posy and the prince search beyond the borders of the story for the runaway princess. They visit mysterious places, face horrifying monsters, and fight fierce battles. They make both friends and enemies as their journey leads them into many dangers. But some of the worst dangers, Posy soon finds, lie deep within her own heart. 

Now Posy must find the courage and forgiveness needed to save the story and, most important, heal the heartache she knew in her own world.

About the Author

Ashlee Willis is the author of fantasy for young adults. She lives in the heart of Missouri with her husband and young son. While most of her days are balanced between writing, reading and homeschooling, she also finds time to enjoy tea with friends, forest walks, photography, and piano playing.

My Review

I had read the blurb before I started, so I should have known what I was getting myself into.  But nope!  In some ways this book was better than I expected it to be.

First of all, it had a distinct Narnia feel to it.  Anyone who has read the Narnia books before is sure to pick up on it.  And to all who like allegorical stories, this is DEFINITELY for you.

The first thing that impressed me about this book was that we jumped into the story breathtakingly quickly.  Sometimes that is too much, but in this case it worked well.  As the story progressed, we learned more about the background of Posy, our main character, but at first I was just trying to stop my head from whirling because everything was happening so quickly.  This was good, I realize now, because that's exactly how Posy was feeling.

She starts out by falling into a book, people.  Now, I know that every avid reader has at some time wished that he could fall into a book and live in his favorite story.  So, that captivated me.  Only, this wasn't a familiar story to Posy.  She had never read it before, and she had no idea of what was going on.

Then we learned that Posy was taking the place of a disappeared Princess, but that everyone knew she most definitely was NOT the princess.  Ooooh, mystery!  That's always something I like!

Then came the exciting parts, where Posy and the princesses' older brother go out on a quest to find the princess.  We have evil owls, a cranky king, forgotten centaurs, sinister mermaids, and an enchanted land called the Glooming.

The fantasy got fairly dark in the middle, when Prince Kyran and Posy were in the Glooming.  Um, yes, rather.

I really liked the way the Plot worked.  I mean, the Kingdom is where the Plot took place, and the Wild Lands are where one left the Plot and was on one's own.  That was a stroke of intense cleverness, I think.

Now, what did I think of the characters?

Posy was nice.  She did a lot of crying in the story, but she could also be strong.  She did not strike me as a complete go-getter but as a hurting girl who had a lot of growing to do.  I liked that.

Kyran?  He was a rather generic character, I thought.  He was the handsome prince who shows up in so many stories.  I felt as though I had read his character before, quite a few times in fact.  He was one of those guys who is determined, and you can always tell from the flash of his dark eyes and the set of his jaw.

The king and queen were interesting.  I can't tell you exactly what I thought of both of them because of spoilers, but I will say that I liked their characters.  I mean, come on!  Any parents who try to kill their own son must be evil, right?  Maybe . . .

The Author!  THE AUTHOR!  He was my favorite.  He wasn't in the story very much, but, oh goodness!  He was amazing.  Thank you, Ashlee!  He made the story for me.  An author who enters his own story?  He was clearly meant to represent God in the allegory.  Some of the characters believed in the Author, and others did not.  He did not tell people the whole story, and he wanted his characters to believe in him because they wanted to, and not because he told them to.  Very clever, indeed.  The Author was the best part of this story for me.  Just saying.

Then there were the centaurs and merpeople.  They were banished from the Plot of the story at the king's command.  And the owls, the evil owls, were exciting.  That was what first made me think of Narnia, although these owls were smaller than the Narnian ones.  The scene where they take Posy out of her bedroom at night made me smile.

There was romance, people.  I know you know that I don't care much for romance in a story, especially when it does not seem relevant to the plot.  That's how I felt about this story.  The romance was not exactly necessary to the plot.  It seemed contrived, as if was there for its own sake.  And there was too much kissing for my taste.

But that might just be me being anti-mushy.  If you like romance mixed with fantasy, then this is probably a good book for you.  If you like Narnia, then this is most certainly a good book for you.

Aside from the romance, I really did enjoy this book.  The writing style was easy to read but not one of those ultra-modern every-other-sentence-is-a-fragment type of styles.

My Rating:  Three out of five stars

Thanks once again, Ashlee!

Thanks for reading, and God bless,