I can see why some people wouldn’t enjoy this book as much as I did. It begins slowly, as the author sets up the world and also the characters of Mina and Lynet. And even when the action picks up in the second half of the book, the story stays mostly focused on the characters and their relationships than it does plot and action. For me, this book checked off several boxes and I ended up really enjoying it.

What I liked:

1. Fairy tale retelling. Snow White has never been my favorite fairy tale, but I still enjoy it. I love the spin this book takes on the source material. It hits all the major beats of the story without being a carbon copy. It brings something new to the table when it shows us the Evil Queen’s origins and the internal conflict she feels.

2. The characters. I preferred Mina to Lynet, especially in the beginning. Lynet didn’t have much agency. But this was obviously intentional in order to show her growth throughout the course of the story. By the end of the book I found her much more palatable as a strong character. I loved learning about Mina’s past and understanding how she could’ve become so dark. Both of these ladies have insecurities that have been instilled in them by their fathers, which was a really interesting addition to the Snow White story, where the men (including Prince Charming) are mostly absent. Mina’s father has told her that she is incapable of love and being loved, and Lynet’s has tried to force his daughter into the mold of a mother she never met. Consequently, both fathers did their daughters a disservice which had a devastating emotional impact on both of them, which the author then explores through the lens of the Snow White fairy tale.
This story is completely driven by its characters. They feel authentic to themselves and attributes the possess (like Lynet’s curiosity and penchant for snooping) are given foundation in the beginning of the story and come back later to service the narrative, so it doesn’t feel like a convenient plot device later on. That being said, this book isn’t devoid of convenient moments...see item one under ‘things I didn’t like.’

3. World-building. I liked that the author was able to create a whole world to explore complete with magic, custom, history, and mythology. It took the source material and expanded it in a really satisfying way.

4. Writing style. I really enjoyed this writing. It’s lyrical and evocative without being overly descriptive and flowery. The author is able to use metaphor that has substance, rather than flowery writing for the sake of flowery writing. It was really beautiful.

What I didn’t like:

1. There is one moment where a character is being threatened with death by another character and instead of killing that person when they get the upper hand, they momentarily incapacitate them and run away, knowing full well that person will come after them and not give up. It was the one major moment in the story where I was like, “Why would that character do that? That’s just idiotic!” There are a few other minor WTF moments where characters (mostly Lynet) make bad decisions, but a lot of times these decisions don’t seem out of character.

2. The romance. I actually found the relationship between Mina and Felix interesting, but it didn’t really affect me in any deep way. I was more interested in the idea that this thing she’d created began to make his own decisions and develop his own personality and moral code.
The romance between Lynet and Nadia was totally flat for me. I appreciate that the author was trying to write a f/f romance, but I didn’t really care about Nadia. I didn’t feel like I knew her very well, and I didn’t see the connection between her and Lynet. I also had a problem because I felt like Nadia read quite a bit older than Lynet. I get that we are told that they are really close in age, but Nadia is a surgeon and Lynet is a sheltered girl who is barely 16 years old. It just felt off to me. Consequently, their relationship didn’t work for me.

3. The audiobook. I listened to about 100 pages of this on audiobook before switching over to my physical copy. The narrator just didn’t impress me at all. Her male voices were not distinguishable from the female voices, Gregory being the only real exception. He was actually the only character she read with any real personality to his voice. This could’ve been so much more enjoyable with a different voice actor. As I’m writing this I’m realizing that as soon as I switched to the physical copy my enjoyment of the story shot way up. I don’t hold this against the book in any way, other than to say that if you are thinking of listening to this on audio, I would recommend the physical instead.

This is not a perfect book, but I still really enjoyed it and want to check out more from this author in the future.