Far Far Away

I liked the slow, foreshadowed build to the inevitable reveal of the horrors in the last bit of the book. McNeal took his time reveling in the creepiness and building the mood. I didn't understand the choice to set the plot in small town, current USA. Whenever the narrator mentioned something about this being present day America, I was thrown.

An excellent dark fairy tale. May be a bit too slow for some teen readers and those not familiar with the tone and pacing of older fairy tales. But if you can be patient enough to get into the rhythm of the tale, I think you will be rewarded with an enchanting read.

Some reviewers have noted that the tale seemed to lack good character development for the secondary and tertiary characters. While this is true, I think it fits in with the fact that the narrator is a 19th-century German ghost. He doesn't know the other characters and their motivations the way he knows the protagonist, Jeremy. Nor is he familiar with modern American life. He even states himself a few times that he didn't understand why a character did something. The reader can easily guess at the motivation behind some of these actions, but these would be completely foreign to someone from the ghost's time and place.

This book about Jeremy Johnson Johnson was a fun little read. It definitely had a sweet story about Jeremy and his ghost Jacob Grimm. I think the tale has enough sweet fantasy fairy tale but definitely plays on how in fairy tales the bad are punished and the heroes/heroines live happily ever after. However they acknowledge that rarely happens in real life. Loved the characters even the villian. Overall a fun sweet story to get lost in.