What the Storyteller Brings
by Robyn Y. Demby

    WHAT THE STORYTELLER BRINGS by Robyn Y. Demby
    Category:  Paranormal
    Age Recommendation:  Grades 9+
    Release Date:  9/8/07
    Publisher:  Booklocker.com
    Reviewed by:  Candace Cunard
    Rating:  4 Stars


    High school sophomore Rosaline is known by her friends as “the storyteller” for the fantastic tales she spins every
    Tuesday night in their company. She uses people she knows in her stories, whether they be her close group of friends
    or the rich girls who bully her at school or the boy she’s secretly admired for years. The stories start as her way of
    getting away from a school life where she’s not one of the popular girls and no one but her friends will notice her, but
    things take a turn for the worse when the things she talks about in her stories begin to cross over into real life.

    Rosaline begins to tell a tale in which her friends and enemies from school are all kidnapped by strange masked men
    and carried off into the woods. What starts as an overlooked coincidence, in which one of the girls who bullies
    Rosaline gets injured in real life in the same way as she did in the story, soon turns out of control. Now, it’s Roz’s
    friends who are in danger, and she doesn’t seem to be able to do anything to stop it, other than to continue telling the
    story.

    The premise for WHAT THE STORYTELLER BRINGS is intriguing and the author handles it well, but I found
    myself more interested in the lives of these girls outside of the realm of the story that Rosaline tells. Their personal
    quirks and insecurities made Rosaline and her friends feel like real people to me, and I appreciated the author’s
    portrayal of girls who aren’t the most popular kids in school and don’t have money to spend on designer clothing, but
    who still have strength and self-respect.