Far Far Away by Tom McNeal - Ashley's Pre-Reading

*I received this book as an eARC from Knopf Books for Young Readers on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*

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Title: Far Far Away
Author: Tom McNeal
Year Published: 2013

Synopsis: It says quite a lot about Jeremy Johnson Johnson that the strangest thing about him isn't even the fact his mother and father both had the same last name. Jeremy once admitted he's able to hear voices, and the townspeople of Never Better have treated him like an outsider since. After his mother left, his father became a recluse, and it's been up to Jeremy to support the family. But it hasn't been up to Jeremy alone. The truth is, Jeremy can hear voices. Or, specifically, one voice: the voice of the ghost of Jacob Grimm, one half of the infamous writing duo, The Brothers Grimm. 

Jacob watches over Jeremy, protecting him from an unknown dark evil whispered about in the space between this world and the next. But when the provocative local girl Ginger Boultinghouse takes an interest in Jeremy (and his unique abilities), a grim chain of events is put into motion. And as anyone familiar with the Grimm Brothers know, not all fairy tales have happy endings...

Young adult veteran Tom McNeal (one half of the writing duo known as Laura & Tom McNeal) has crafted a novel at once warmhearted, compulsively readable, and altogether thrilling--and McNeal fans of their tautly told stories will not be disappointed.

Why?: I love anything about fairy tales, and I was especially excited to hear that this one had not only fairy tales, but the ghost of one of the most well known collector of fairy tales. I mean seriously, how could I turn down a book where Ghost Jacob Grimm is a main character? 

Expectations: I expect a nice story, with a lot of fairy tale references. I also expect things to not go well all the time though, because the Grimm Brothers didn't collect only happy fairy tales, so something has to go wrong eventually. I'm looking forward to mystery and maybe a little adventure too, along with some weird circumstances. Oh, and I bet Never Better will be far far away, or the kids will want to run somewhere far far away.

Judging a book by its cover: I'm not really sure how I feel about this cover. The colors are gorgeous, but it seems very cartoony to me. I would probably pick this up off of a shelf because it looks like the cover of something fairy tale related, but I'm not sure.


--Ashley