Sweetly by Jackson Pearce

Title: Sweetly (Fairytales Retelling #2)
Author: Jackson Pearce
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Release date: August 23, 2011
Rating : 3.5 /5

As a child, Gretchen's twin sister was taken by a witch in the woods. Ever since, Gretchen and her brother, Ansel, have felt the long branches of the witch's forest threatening to make them disappear, too.

Years later, when their stepmother casts Gretchen and Ansel out, they find themselves in sleepy Live Oak, South Carolina. They're invited to stay with Sophia Kelly, a beautiful candy maker who molds sugary magic: coveted treats that create confidence, bravery, and passion.

Life seems idyllic and Gretchen and Ansel gradually forget their haunted past -- until Gretchen meets handsome local outcast Samuel. He tells her the witch isn't gone -- it's lurking in the forest, preying on girls every year after Live Oak's infamous chocolate festival, and looking to make Gretchen its next victim. Gretchen is determined to stop running and start fighting back. Yet the further she investigates the mystery of what the witch is and how it chooses its victims, the more she wonders who the real monster is.

Gretchen is certain of only one thing: a monster is coming, and it will never go away hungry.

Twelve years ago, seven year-old Ansel and his six year-old twin sisters went into the woods searching for a witch. What start as a game end up badly because the witch found them and they had to run for their lives and not all of them got to the safety of their home, one sister didn´t make it.

In the present Ansel and her sister Gretchen have just been kick out of their home by their stepmother and they decided to travel south to the beach and start a new life there. But they end up stranded at Live Oak South Carolina and living and working in a chocolatier outside of town in the woods, owned by the beautiful Sophia Kelly.

In Live Oak Gretchen starts feeling more confident and secure, she feels that for the first time she can breathe that she can stop being afraid and she wants to stop running away of her fears. She believed she had left behind the witch, but she could not be more wrong.

Sweetly is the retelling, loosely based on Hansel and Gretel. This books is from the point of view of Gretchen a 18 year-old girl that at the beginning of the book was really insecure and depends on her older brother to help her with everything, she was a quiet, shy girl that was afraid of everything. During the book she becomes more secure in herself, she stops being afraid and decides to fight her fears. I would have liked to have Ansel point of view.

Yes, I like the book but it wasn´t what I was expecting.