StoryBrooke Gardens

StoryBrooke Gardens

 http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Baja%20Norte/94/165/2001

Rated: M for Moderate

Owner: Lauren Bentham

I've never been much of a fairy tale girl.  As a child in real life, I was never one to fall for the whimsy of the romantic fairy tale.  I can remember asking my mother why Cinderella didn't just run away and start a life on her own, and why it was only the love of a prince that could wake snow white instead of the dwarfs that loved her so much.

When I was 11 I read A Mid Summer Nights Tale by William Shakespeare and fell in love with his ability to take the whimsical and romantic and mock it in his own comic way.  Perhaps that's one of the reasons, soon after, that I fell in love with Alice in Wonderland.  My grandfather handed me a beaten old book of Lewis Carroll and told me to read it.  It was love at first word.  Something about this impish child who managed to allow her curiosity get the better of her resonated with me.  The land she fell into was so different then the normal picture perfect world portrayed by fairy tales, and her struggles to get home resonated with me.

Since that time (and believe me that was now a LONG time ago) a worn out copy of Alice in Wonderland has sat on my bedside table.  As some would reach for a piece of chocolate on a bad day, I reach for this book.  Just a passage or two gives my soul a peace and calm that I can't quite explain to anyone that hasn't fallen in love with a book.

I tell you all this so you can understand that even though I am a huge fan of Lauren Bentham's sim, I was not overly thrilled to be visiting a fairy tale theme sim.  Not because the sim isn't up to her usual standards of brilliant but because this theme has never resonated with me.

You land in a world of lights and soft fairy tale like colors and instantly know you have arrived in another world.  Everything calls your camera and I definitely didn't have any problem finding stunning photos to take right from the start.  I simply wasn't enjoying them as much as I usually was, or putting myself in them the way I usual would because of the theme.

The sim makes an easy transition from a summer romantic feel into a darker snowy stage with an ease that only Lauren could pull off.  Everywhere you look there is some little detail poking out behind trees or blades of grass and snow, begging to catch your eye.  I'm sure you could walk through the sim a dozen times and continue to always find something new.

In true Bentham fashion though, I found myself rounding a corner and finding something that instantly had me loving the sim.

This tiny little gated area contains the perfect little Alice in wonderland set up, complete with all its characters.  I admit I spent longer in this one area then I did most of the sim, and was instantly flooded by a dozen or more quotes from the book running through my mind.

Amazed that I am saying this, I will definitely be back.  Lauren Bentham never fails to make sure that there is something for EVERYONE on her sims while keeping them beautifully to theme.