Mary’s two companions are Rat and a wooden animated doll called Scarecrow. However, I didn’t dislike her, I didn’t like her as much as her two companions but I find that quite often I like the characters on the periphery or who are not intended as the key players. In terms of characters I think people may struggle a little to like Mary, particularly at the start of the story, and I will admit that she’s sometimes her own worst enemy. Mary takes one journey after another dipping her toes into countless tales ranging from the Norse gods to Spider witches, voodoo, tales of fey and even moving into a tale of purgatory – which is here portrayed as the belly of a giant ship with twisty winding corridors and dark creepy places that are inhabited by shadows that try to trick and catch you! The stories become a little more sinister with each telling until you move almost into urban fantasy with a couple of downright horror stories in the making. Shortly after making the acquaintance of Ratty Mary mistakenly dons the outfit of Little Red Riding Hood (I won’t go into the details of the why or where) and inadvertently casts herself into the character from the fairy story which means the big bad wolf will pursue her relentlessly to the ends of the earth.įrom hereon-in anything can and will happen. Well, you just knew that was going to happen! As she crawls along in the dark she realises she’s moved into a different territory – and how does she reach that conclusion you may ask? Because she meets a talking rat – Rat in Boots no less (although he hasn’t quite acquired the boots yet). Basically, Mary, through a dare, crawls into a crawl space under the house where the party is being held – and somebody shuts the hatch. Which is quite fitting because she’s going to spend the rest of the story attired for trick or treating. To be honest Mary doesn’t read like a twelve year old – more like 17/18 but I think this age was probably chosen because it better fit the purposes of the story.Īt the beginning Mary is, against the wishes of her mother, making her way to a party on Halloween. She has her own reasons for being a snarky wise ass. I wouldn’t say she’s always easy to like but you need to bear with her on that score. Mary Stuart is a 12 year old with a lot of attitude. Just finished reading Quite Contrary by Richard Roberts which on the face of it I thought would be a sort of retelling of the fairy story Red Riding Hood but in actual fact turned out to be a journey through a mishmash of many fairy stories.
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