My rating: 4 of 5 stars
It took a few for me to get into it, but after a while it was a fun page turner (well, page tapper since I read it on my kindle). Anyway, it was a variation of the Nutcracker, which then promptly made me watch Barishnikov's movie, which made me like the book even more since I didn't really like the movie. In my hunt for the real story of the Nutcracker, I found that the true story was actually pretty dark from what I read. I have no idea what the story was, only that it was changed by Alexander Dumas to be what we know today. All that to say- I wonder if this was closer to the original.
In this book, the power of music and the importance of not having a "rat" in you is the key, kind of like in Meet the Robinson's is was that the evil villian had a "rat" in him. So instead of Tchiakovsky's music in my head, I had "Let it Go" (no, not Elsa's version), but Rob Thomas's. Good story, and I'm always down for an alternate story of a beloved classic.