Richard Roberts story "Quite Contrary" is an adult aimed fairy tale filled with dark themes, exquisite settings that are so rich in detail that one will have no problem visualizing it, and quirky characters that quite often are not lovable but are completely believable in their complexities. Roberts begins his offering with the well thought out title when giving his protagonist the name "Mary", as in - Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? - hopefully giving his readers the clue that one must ponder and think while lost in Mary's world... as well as after one finishes the tale and leaves the world behind. Mary is not your typical twelve year old. She curses like a sailor - well, until she promises Rat-in-Boots she will try to refrain and most must realize children will likely curse while out with their peers; she hates following the rules and will oft do the opposite simply because she is so obstinate - wait, that does sound like a pre-teen or a teen; and, she often reasons with a maturity level much higher than a typical twelve year old - in fairness, there are some real life situations that often forces a child to grow up much faster than we may wish.... This reader found very few grammar and/or spelling errors; punctuation errors such as misplaced quotation marks were spotted a few times, but not often enough to toss one from the world. Instead, this reader was able to transition from one fairy tale to the next mythological tale to the next urban legend, with all of the confusion and complexities the young protagonist must have felt. Quite often the tale had a surreal bizarre feel to it that eats at a reader's own established views on morality and makes one simply think, "What would I have done in that situation?" While Mary Stuart may be the twelve year old protagonist of the tale, this is not a book written for the pre-teen or young Young Adult. No, this book is actually a psychological horror offering that makes a reader think and question and hopefully understand that there may not always be a correct path to one's own self-acceptance and tolerance of one's own flaws, but rather achieve a recognition that the paths followed were of their own choosing and now one must learn to live with those choices. This is a tale about foraging one's own path and learning to live with the results. However, after the creatively disturbing build-up presented throughout the entire beginning - and middle - of the book, this reader found the ending to be lacking. In fact, the final chapter was simply a recap of the entire book presented as a fairy tale and was a fairly large let-down after such a huge build-up. Disappointing ending, for this reader, allowed only a 3-star rating. This reader confesses her very real disappointment over the way Roberts chose to end the tale he so carefully crafted and wove, but not enough to state she will not recommend this story or this writer... this reader will eventually see what other contributions Richard Roberts has offered to readers, and go from there. ** This review was originally posted on Amazon reviews August 6, 2016. **
