Crazy Jack is one of my favorites by Donna Jo Napoli, one of the big authors of fairy tale retellings. Sometimes her writing style doesn't really work for me: it really does for this story.This one sticks pretty closely to the original story, as far as the bare bones. She doesn't rearrange many of the elements of the story, but rather fills them in delightfully, with a romance story that I found far more satisfactory than the relationships in Hush or Zel. Crazy Jack is so well told that even though I know the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, Napoli's skillful weaving had me wondering until the meaningful and pleasing ending.
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