Zel: Somewhat Intense in Present Tense

Context: I found this book at the BYU bookstore’s book fair. My rule for myself as I stepped into the book fair was that I could not buy any book that cost more than $4. Zel was on sale for $3.50. Re-writings of fairy tales intrigue me and I’d never heard of the book, so I took a chance and spent the $3.50.

Summary: Zel is the re-telling of the classic fairytale Rapunzel. The story begins with a little girl and her mother making a special trip to town. You quickly find out that Zel doesn’t get to go to town very often. In fact, she doesn’t spend time away from her mother very often…or ever. She does really like animals and a special lettuce called rapunzel though. On this fateful trip to town she meets a boy. The boy plays the role of “prince” and proceeds to obsess over her for the remainder of the book. Eventually, you find out that Zel’s mother isn’t really her mother. Because the “mother” can’t stand to think that Zel could get married and leave her, she ends up locking Zel away in a tower using magical abilities for which she traded her soul to the devil. Zel spends months/years in the tower believing her “mother’s” story that she must stay in the tower because something terrible is out to get her. Eventually, she starts to go mad, which is really interesting since pieces of the tale are told from her point of view.

Analysis: The whole thing is very dramatic, especially since it’s entirely written in first person present tense. So, the story unfolds as if it’s actually happening. The disadvantage to this is that you really almost have to read it in one sitting. If you get out of the flow, it’s hard to get back in. She also switches narrators from character to character. Sometimes it’s the prince, sometimes it’s Zel, sometimes it’s the “mother.” Again, this makes it a little difficult to follow at times, but it also makes it very interesting because it’s almost like several re-tellings of the story in one. This re-telling really plays on mental and emotional energy. It’s almost depressing at points (i.e. when Zel goes psycho in the tower), but I wouldn’t label it as disturbing. However, I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone under the age of thirteen.

Educational Context: Several interesting concepts bounce around the novel. The idea of different points of view would be an interesting one to explore with a class. Also, the first person tense could be fun to experiment with in story telling. As far as media literacy discussions, I think it would be a good demonstration of the choices that are made when telling a story. Because it’s a book, this shows examples of how an author chose to tell a story in a novel, but you could also look at a song, a poem, a children’s book, a movie, a cartoon—other mediums in which stories are told and discuss the choices their creators made and how they effect the telling of the stories.