Rewritten

by Tara Gilboy

Overview

After learning the truth about her own fairy tale, twelve-year-old Gracie wants nothing more than to move past the terrible things author Gertrude Winters wrote about her and begin a new chapter in the real world. If only things were going as planned. On the run from the evil Queen Cassandra, the characters from Gracie’s story have all been forced to start over, but some of them cannot forget Gracie’s checkered past.

Even worse, Gracie discovers that her story is still being written in Cassandra’s magic book, the Vademecum. As long as Cassandra has the Vademecum, none of the characters are safe, including Gracie’s mom and dad. In a desperate attempt to set things right, Gracie finds herself transported into another one of Gertrude’s tales—but this one is a horror story. Can Gracie face her destiny and the wild beast roaming the night, to rewrite her own story?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631634338
Publisher:	North Star Editions
Publication date:	04/07/2020
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	1,076,841
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	9 - 14 Years

About the Author

Tara Gilboy holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, where she specialized in writing for children and young adults. She teaches creative writing in San Diego Community College's Continuing Education Program and for the PEN Writers in Prisons Program. Her work has appeared in Word Riot, Beloit Fiction Journal, Cricket, and other publications. She lives in San Diego, California.

Editorial Reviews

05/01/2020

Gr 3–6—A fictional character brought to life, 12-year-old Gracie changed her story and united her family in Unwritten. In this fast-paced sequel, Gracie must grapple with her imperfect life in hiding with her author and fellow characters, especially their mistrust of her based on her villainous role in their story. Gilboy skillfully depicts Gracie's fears that she may be fundamentally evil even as she strives to do the right thing in the surprisingly complex continuation of this ongoing series. Although the plot's quick finish with a set-up for the next installment lacks an emotional resolution, Gracie's strong characterization will hold readers' interest. VERDICT Recommended for purchase in large collections or for fans of the previous title.—Molly Saunders, Manatee County P.L., Bradenton, FL

School Library Journal

2020-01-12
A fictional character in the real world hasn't escaped her origins.

Rewriting the end of her own story in Unwritten (2018) was supposed to make everything better for 12-year-old Gracie. But the real world is no picnic: The former residents of fictional Bondoff are hungry and cranky, living in cramped quarters with their author, Gertrude. Gracie's friend Walter's parents hold Gracie's past as an author-controlled villain against her. Walter's folks aren't alone in thinking Gracie might be wicked, as Cassandra, the evil stepmother from Bondoff, thinks she can reclaim Gracie's love. In Cassandra's clutches, without even the privacy of her thoughts to call her own, all Gracie can do is escape into a different story, one of Gertrude's half-finished, abandoned manuscripts. Gracie and Walter are trapped in a feminist gothic horror—"It was supposed to be a metaphor," Gertrude had explained—but not much emerges from this clash of tropes. Gracie and Walter, like all of Gertrude's other (apparently all white) characters, were written as Gertrude worked out her personal psychodramas, and all of them are based on aspects of the writer and her family. Though that framing should allow for compelling character building, the result is disappointingly simplistic and flat.

Magical metafiction doesn't live up to its premise. (Fantasy. 9-11)

Kirkus Reviews