The story starts in Russia, where Ivan and his family live. Around the age of 10, Ivan's family decides to leave Russia to move to America, but not before visiting Cousin Marek in Ukraine. In the woods near Cousin Marek's home, Ivan encounters a beautiful sleeping woman guarded by a bear. He runs away but is haunted by this image for years to come.
Years later in America, Ivan is a graduate student, engaged to a girl named Ruth, and goes back to Russia to complete his post grad research. Unable to shake his memory of the sleeping woman, Ivan goes back to those woods near Cousin Marek's and frees her from the bear and wakes her from her sleep. Princess Katerina was put under the sleeping spell by the evil Baba Yaga, the witch who torments her kingdom, and Ivan must agree to marry Katerina in order to defeat the witch and liberate her people.
I really, really enjoyed this book. It took a classic fairy tale and threw in modern Ivan and time travel and lots of other great stuff. It was fun to learn about Jewish Russian history and about the differences between Russian fairy tales and American ones. The character development in this book was fantastic; all of the main characters get to tell their perspectives, which really lets you get in their heads; and the love story between Ivan and Katerina was wonderful. I would definitely recommend Enchantment!
4.5 out of 5 stars
(I'm only not giving a 5 star rating because I can't see myself reading this over and over again, even though it was great.)
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