Most Recent Reject: The Forest in the Hallway

The Forest in the Hallway by Gordon Smith started out promising. The beginning reminded me of The Series of Unfortunate Events. Beatriz, the protagonist, is alarmed to find her parents missing one day. She goes to live with her uncle in his apartment building. Her uncle tells her to not go to the building's nineteenth floor, so like a lion cub we are all fond of, she disobeys her uncle and goes to the nineteenth floor where she finds a hallway that gradually turns into a forest.

In the forest she meets the Grim Reaper, who announces "Please don't be alarmed by my appearance. It's a costume. I've learned that people expect a certain dramatic touch...but yes I am Death. The Grim Reaper. Your Eternal Reward. Whatever. (15)" It was an interesting take on the personification of death, but I kind of liked the symbolism. By this point in the book I was expecting her parents to actually have passed on and in Alice-in-Wonderland fashion she was going to come to terms with the idea and be able to move on with her life.

Unfortunately I set my hopes to high. Turns out she runs into a fairy (named Rose), with rainbow dragon fly wings and two fairy kids. The kids found a magic book and use it to conjure animals. This wasn't what I was expecting and I wanted to see if it was worth finishing, so I skipped to the end. Turns out her parents were magically turned into children and once they turned back into adults they all went home. I'm glad I didn't take the time to read the whole thing.