On 12/01/21 10:43 am, David Johnston wrote:
> In The Stalk, Jack lives at the bottom of a "space elevator made of
> living metal".  Her job is to feed it.  Then one day she is the latest
> person picked to go up the elevator and be interviewed by the wealthy
> owners of the project.  It's an honor she'd as soon decline since those
> picked seem to end up with a compulsion to kill themselves.
>
> This is the second in a series, with the first one having been a
> Cinderella retelling, where the prince's "party" takes the form of a
> flight simulator test (essentially a video game) to qualify for fighter
> pilot status.  This horrific take on Jack and the Beanstalk is better.

I finished it recently and thought it was a great concept but it is
aimed at a young audience and is accordingly quite short and simplistic.
I enjoyed the beginning and struggled to finish the final quarter but I
dislike YA stuff because I can not identify with how teenage girls
interact with others let alone imaginative futuristic scenarios.

> Many of the big fairy tales were metaphors.  Beauty and the Beast was
> about arranged marriage.  Sleeping Beauty was about the loss of
> virginity and subsequent childbirth.  Her awakening is a sexual one. Red
> Riding Hood was about the perils of talking to strangers.  Jack and the
> Beanstalk is at it's heart, a story about a poor person rebelling
> against the wealthy and powerful who live above the commoners.  The
> author gets that.

Yes.