A Spindle Splintered (Fractured Fables, #1) ♦ Alix E. Harrow | Review
In A Spindle Splintered, a delightful modern retelling of Sleeping Beauty, the predestined fates of two girls who are destined to die change as their paths cross.
It's Zinnia Gray's twenty-first birthday, which is extra-special because it's the last birthday she'll ever have. When she was young, an industrial accident left Zinnia with a rare condition. Not much is known about her illness, just that no one has lived past twenty-one.
Her best friend Charm is intent on making Zinnia's last birthday special with a full sleeping beauty experience, complete with a tower and a spinning wheel. But when Zinnia pricks her finger, something strange and unexpected happens, and she finds herself falling through worlds, with another sleeping beauty, just as desperate to escape her fate.
One with a chronic illness that will probably not keep her alive until she is 22, and another destined to sleep forever. The parallels here were fantastically chosen.
While I really enjoyed the adventures of the protagonists, I was a little overwhelmed with the nature and explanation of travel into the fairy tales. That just couldn’t convince me. I also found some of the characters a bit annoying, especially the main character made me roll my eyes more than once. I was really glad that it was only a short story.
But the messages in the story are clear: power to the women, because no princess really had to be saved. They simply took the reins into their own hands and saved themselves.
CAWPILE
Characters
Atmosphere
Writing
Plot
Intrigue
Overall:
Conclusion
All in all, it’s a playful mockery of fairy tale clichés, complete with the obligatory happy ending, some tilting of uncomfortable fairy tale concepts, and enough heartwarming elements to make for an enjoyable read.
I feel like I'm a million pages old. I've lived thousands of lives, loved, grieved and died many deaths. I've had a home in almost every corner of the earth and in many new worlds. I've made many friends and fought many enemies. ─ Good books aren't read, they're lived and at the end of each book we're left changed. In comparison, reality sometimes just seems grey. ─ They say we're the heroes of our own stories, or the villains. But it often seems very realistic, as if we readers are more like the tragic-comic supporting characters. ─ Goodreads Librarian | My book wish list. ;)
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A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow
