This book was unbelievably clever,

A professional runner studying dead languages - happens to take an internship... being about the only person in the entire world who could survive what happens to him.

The thought of reading ancient stories and having them be about your mom, or dad, or something that's happening to you right now...

The politics and religion of the ancient world were genius - and critical to suck a reader in to believe the situation is plausible.

The thought of ancient Gods coming to our time and manipulating our technology to track down people - was priceless.

Even the lesser characters had realistic troubles and agendas...

Well woven.

I don't typically write reviews for books I didn't like, but I feel like I should this time to provide a bit of a warning. I could not finish this book. The main reason I had to stop reading was the nudity. Let me explain. It wasn't sexual nudity, it was just... weird. I made it halfway through the book and there were already three long scenes where someone was naked. None of the scenes added anything to the plot, it just felt like they were naked for the sake of being naked. On top of this there were several discussions about genitals and circumcision that didn't seem necessary. I seem to remember a lot of similar nudity in Ender's Game so maybe this is just how Orson Scott Card writes. It felt like I was reading the ramblings of a sexually repressed teenager and I couldn't take it anymore. Besides the nudity, I found the characters flat and the female characters were especially poorly written. The story line was just okay. Oh and the grad student main character was repulsed by the fact that women have periods. So yeah, I doubt I'll be reading anything by OSC again.

As a fan of Orson Scott Card, I absolutely hated this book. A mediocre retelling of fairy and folk tales (mostly from Russia) this book was cliche, drawn out, and often boring. Where intrigue and drama was trying to be built by the use of modern magic, it felt trite and forced. A mix of A Connecticut Yankee in King Authors Court with Sleeping Beauty. Complete with crashing a jetplane in the past (explaining Baba Yaga folk tale with her flying chicken legged house.)

While the retelling of folk tales in this book are interesting and arguably well woven, the overall book just didn't work.

An absolute do not read. Find another Scott Card book or something worth while, because this one isn't.

Well written, no plot holes and i loved the multi POV.

3.5 stars, I think. I still like the story; it drags in some places, but the whole Russian fairy tale plus time travel plus mentions of Byzantium does wonders for my attention span.

I started this retelling of “Sleeping Beauty” immediately after finishing n  City of Thievesn, and I was fully expecting to be transported to a radically different world. Imagine my surprise when this book picked up more or less where the last had left off – in the Soviet Union (albeit the 1970’s, not post-war). I got to the enchanted forest eventually, but it took a couple of chapters.

The book is a fusion of the fairy tales of Sleeping Beauty and Baba Yaga, the baby-eating witch of Russian folklore. Our handsome prince is Ivan, a Jewish boy born in the Soviet Union who defects to America with his family at age ten and returns to the Ukraine as a grad student after the fall of communism. The sleeping beauty he awakens from her millennium-long dream is Princess Katerina, but before they can live happily ever after, they have to go back to the 9th century and defeat Baba Yaga. The book is action-packed, romantic, and thoroughly addictive, but from the point of view of a religious Jew, it’s absolutely worth skipping.

The main problem with the book – surprise, surprise – are it’s inaccuracies in its portrayal of Jews. Princess Katerina lives in the period when Christianity was first gaining a foothold in Europe, and I have no trouble believing that she and her subjects pray and confess like Christians yet still dabble in witchcraft and occasionally invoke the names of pagan gods. Old habits die hard. But Jews were never pagans. Tanach is full of warnings to the Jews to stop their idol worship, but that was in the ancient period. When Prince Casmir invited the Jews to Poland, he allowed them religious freedom, and thus grew the very insular communities of Eastern European Jewry. The pagan beliefs of their neighbors were no temptation for Jews, so all plot twists with Ivan and his family simply did not ring true. Orson Scott Card, himself a Mormon, probably doesn’t know the difference, but any religious Jew would, and most would find the Jewish characters offensive.

I think I’m going to create a new shelf called “Regrettable Reads.” The addictively good writing of this book deserves at least a 4, but for the portrayal of the Jews, it loses one, and even that may be too little. Frum friends who love fantasy, don’t read this. You won’t be missing anything you can’t get elsewhere, sans the anti-Semitism.

This book was a really beautiful fairytale. I listened to it on audiobook, which I think made it even better because the voices gave even more personality to the characters than they already had. All in all it was a really beautiful book that I really enjoyed.

What happens after Sleeping Beauty gets her happily ever after? A lot, apparently. Orson Scott Card takes the well-known fairy tale to its Russian roots and breathes life into a story that ordinarily fits on a few pages. I especially love the character development of Ivan and Katerina. Expands on the common theme in Card novels of the importance of strong marriages of equal partners. Not preachy or anything, but I love his emphasis on that point.

I’m going to say 3.5 stars. The beginning was...boring. I was bored. Sorry! I almost DNF’d at 30%, but I figured something interesting was bound to happen soon so I stuck with it. I’m glad I did! It got SO much more enjoyable after that. It was so slow. The book is LONG and a lot of it felt unnecessary. But once it got interesting, it was fantastic! I really enjoyed the time travel aspect of it and seeing each character experience a new time and place.

I didn’t really believe the characters were actually in love at any moment in the book. Both main characters had their annoying moments. Baba Yaga was weird. I don’t know if she was badly written or if the female audiobook reader is just TERRIBLE. I definitely think she’s pretty bad.

My only other complaint is that the ending was badly done. For such a lengthy book, the ending felt too easy, convenient, and rushed. Suddenly after hundreds of pages, BAM it was over. Hmmm...not the best.

This is a beautifull,enthralling fairy tale! It is a compilation of rich folk and fairy tales from the Slavic nations. I would recommend this compelling parable on love, marriage and life to anyone already married or almost married. The reason being, much of the content is mature in nature, but not profane. It does contain several vulgar moments and not a few colorful words.

My husband read this to me every night when we were first dating. My first Card book. Holds a place in my heart.

Dětská fantazie je něco neskutečného. Kdejaké dítě si představuje různá stvoření, na která dospělí už dávno přestali věřit. A Ivan si myslí, že přesně to se stalo jemu. Že si dívku spící na mýtině pokryté listím a hlídanou tajemnou nestvůrou jen vysnil. Proto Ivana, po letech v emigraci, kdy i s rodinou utekl do Ameriky, a po spoustě hodin strávených studiemi starých kultur a jazyků, překvapí, když zjistí, že to nebylo jen dětské fantazírování...

Není pohádka jako pohádka. Když se řekne pohádka, spoustě lidí se vybaví princezny, krásný zámek, načančané honosné šaty, krásný princ a šťastný konec. Orson Scott Card má o tomhle úplně jinou představu. Jeho pohádková princezna vůbec není rozmazlenou holčičkou, která by se neuměla o sebe postarat. Naopak Katarina je pěkně od rány a nenechá si jenom tak něco líbit. A Ivan také není tím dokonalým hrdinou, místo toho je ve světě Katariny považován za naprosto nepoužitelného slabocha, který je naprosto k ničemu.


Zakletá není kniha jen o šťastném konci a záchraně Tajny, země, která existovala v devátém století na Ukrajině, ale o které jaktěživ nikdo v současnosti neslyšel. Čtenář se dozví spoustu zajímavých věcí o historii, o středověkých jazycích, židovském náboženství a dalších věcech, o kterých jste neměli tušení, že jsou tak zajímavé.

Celý příběh je vyprávěný er-formou z pohledu různých postav. Ať už Ivana, Kateriny, Ivanových rodičů nebo obávané Baby Jagy, která se, společně s medvědem, stala mou oblíbenou postavou, protože i když kapitoly z jejího pohledu byly o něco kratší, vždycky jsem se skvěle bavila a vidina další části jejího příběhu byla docela dobrým tahounem, abych se na čtení nevykašlala.

Orson Scott Card je neskutečným vypravěčem. Nemůžu to porovnávat s originálem, ale náš překlad byl naprosto neskutečný. Nejen že tam nebyly žádné chyby v textu, ale celé to bylo napsané s neskutečnou slovní zásobou, což je obrovské plus hlavně s ohledem na veškeré popisy, které v knize jsou. A že jich je opravdu hodně. Nicméně, právě Orsonův styl je pro mě kamenem úrazu.

Někteří autoři mají vybraný styl vyprávění, který hodně ovlivní to, jestli se to bude čtenáři líbit nebo ne. A mě Orsonův styl nezaujal - spíš naopak. Chápu, proč se jeho vyprávění tolika lidem líbí. Je to květnaté, autentické, vykreslené do nejmenšího detailu - přesně tak, aby vás ten svět pohltil, abyste se ponořili do příběhu a užívali si ho plnými doušky. Jenomže na mě tohle nezapůsobilo. Právě díky autorově stylu jsem se nudila, nic mě k příběhu netáhlo a zdálo se mi to zbytečně natahované, zdlouhavé. Jednoduše opravdu ubíjející. K tomu ještě dopomáhaly malá písmenka a dlouhé odstavce, které ještě víc přispívaly k tomu, že se to strašně vleklo.

Zakletá je opravdu kouzelný příběh. Je to pravá pohádka, která ale nepostrádá ani humor a nějaké ty akčnější chvíle. Na své si přijdou milovníci historie a také starověkých jazyků, se kterými si autor pohrál naprosto neskutečně. Nicméně bych to doporučila spíš staršímu publiku, některé scény - hlavně v podání Baby Jagy - byly poněkud drsné a menším dětem by se zrovna dobře neusínalo po tom, co by si přečetli/slyšeli o nějakých jejích praktikách. Ono celkově je na tom vidět, že to není pro úplná škvrňata, protože takový nával informací by dětský mozek těžko pobral. Ale pokud chcete, je to skvělý příběh na převyprávění.

Knize dávám dvě hvězdičky zcela subjektivního rázu. Není to dvouhvězdičková kniha, tahle kniha má mnohem na víc - ale ne u mě. Není to špatná kniha, naopak je to dobrá kniha s opravdu neskutečně propracovaným příběhem, mě bohužel nijak nezaujala a dočítala jsem ji horko těžko.

Reakce po dočtení: Tohle vážně byla výzva.