The Stepsister Scheme Jim C. Hines is honestly one of my favorite authors, even though he’s never written a book that I’ve lost my mind* over. What he writes is solid, fun fantasy with a strong feminist backbone. He also seems to have a thing for championing the underdog, and writing stories that subvert traditional story-types. The Princess series, of which I’ve read all but the last book at the time of writing this review, is particularly notable as all the main characters are ladies, […]
“When something catches your attention just keep your attention on it, stick with it ’til the end, and somewhere along the line there’ll be weirdness.”
It would be reductive to sum this book up as ‘Snow White in the ’60s with racism,’ but you could if you really wanted to. That’s the hook that caught me, after all. But really, the Snow White story is just the way in. It’s not really concerned with the same things that Snow White (or other fairy-tales) is concerned with. Boy, Snow, Bird is not as mysterious of a title as it first appears. Boy, Snow and Bird are all characters in the novel. […]
Short but sweet take on Rapunzel.
Rapunzel is my favorite fairy-tale, so you can imagine my skepticism learning the Rapunzel in this version has no hair. Absolutely none at all. But I was charmed by the author’s way with words, and by the end, she had me with her version of this story (even if I loved it for very different reasons than I love the original tale). I read the whole thing in about an hour and a half. It’s not very long, but it packs a nice little punch. […]
Space Rapunzel is a socially mal-adjusted hacker and I love her.
“When she was just a child, the witch locked her away in a tower that had neither doors nor stairs.” Guys, I can’t give out another five star rating this year. I just can’t. But I almost did with this anyway. It was THISCLOSE. I’m going with 4.5 stars for now, but I reserve the right to change my mind upon re-read. I just really really enjoyed myself while reading this, probably more than I should have. Cress, the third volume of The Lunar Chronicles, is […]
A fun adventure where the woodcutter heroine rescues the young man in distress
Saturday Woodcutter believes she is the only one of her many siblings without any magic, until the day when she throws a mirror out of the window in a rage, and conjures an ocean in the backyard. Because one of her brothers has run away and Saturday believes her ocean may have drowned him, she grabs her trusty axe (which has decided to change shape into a sword for the time being) and sets sail on her sister Thursday’s pirate ship in order to try […]
The girl in the red cloak is a princess, and the wolf is a landless earl in a mask. Grandma’s sort of sinister, though.
This is the third book in a series, which began with Princess of the Midnight Ball. While you don’t really need to have read the second book in the series, Princess of Glass to fully appreciate the book, you should probably have read the first one (or at least be more than passingly familiar with the fairytale of The Twelve Dancing Princesses) to get the full experience of this book, as there are a lot of references to the events of the first book. There will also be mild spoilers […]