Cloaked by Alex Flinn

Summary:

Unlike her previous YA novel, Beastly, Alex Flinn’s Cloaked is a re-imagined telling about more than one cherished fairy tale. Using the stories of The Frog Prince, The Six Swans, The Elves and the Shoemaker and more, Cloaked tells the story of a modern day teenager thrust into seeing a world beyond his imagination and the journey to find a missing prince.

This is the tale of Johnny, a teenage boy who works to run his family’s failing shoe repair store. An encounter with a visiting princess sets Johnny on a quest to find the princess’s missing brother—who had been cursed into the form of a frog. If he succeeds, the princess will marry him and provide riches--more than enough for Johnny's mother to stop working two jobs. At first he doesn’t believe any of her stories. In an attempt to persuade him, he is given a simple cloak. But the cloak, it seems, isn’t so simple after all.

Using the cloak to travel, Johnny goes off in search of the Frog Prince, meets a family who had been turned into swans, is helped by a fox who wished to be human again, runs from witches, battles giants with the help of his best friend Meg, and falls in love in the process.

But most importantly, Johnny is finally able to find exactly where he belongs. 

Opinion: 

Though the story is at times clichéd, it was a fun tale about life and love. I couldn’t help but root for Johnny, pray he saved the swans and the fox, and hope he realized that his best friend loved him. The ending had a few unexpected pieces, but the story tied together well.

A great read and one I will revisit in the future. 

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆