Title: Whiter Than Snow
Author: Matthew Eldridge
Available on: Kindle, Paperback
About this book:
Whiter Than Snow was sold to me as a fairytale re-telling of the infamous Snow White. You remember her, right? Disney princess, lives in a cottage with seven dwarves who each have their own personality and nickname that defines who they are? The woman who eats the apple and basically temporarily dies? Yeah? Thought that would bring back the memory!
**Please be aware that this may not remain spoiler free, however, it will remain as spoiler free as possible**
In this fairy tale re-telling, we follow the main character, Princess Margarete as she embarks on life. However, there is already a cruel twist of fate at this part. Why? She doesn't know she's a princess! She was rescued from the evil clutches of a witch at birth, after the witch convinced her parents that the infant was in fact dead. So as the King tended to his dying wife, the witch fled with the 'dead' infant. She does get rescued however, and is secretly sent to live with a former help of the Queen, Lucinda. This is where Margarete learns all there is to know about cooking, cleaning and general upkeeping of houses, which pays off massively later in the book.
And all of that just happened in the Prologue!
We then hear the beginnings of the story of Prince Phillip. Throughout the book, the story jumps from one area to another, and although this may sound confusing at first, the author makes it work really well to suit the narrative and links everything together quite nicely, and rarely are you left confused.
Throw in a couple of love interests, a new horrid Queen, a teenage girl and her emotions and some historical movements - nothing too difficult to follow, although they add to the story quite well, and this makes for a pretty good read!
-I did actually start keeping notes when I first began reading this, however, I got so engrossed I kind of forgot to keep up with note taking!-
**THIS NEXT SECTION WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS, PLEASE SCROLL TO THE END OF THIS SECTION IF YOU WISH TO REMAIN SPOILER FREE**
Okay, so where do I begin?
First of all, I fell in love with the relationship of Jack and Margarete from the beginning. He seemed so sweet and genuine, and it broke my heart that she was so uncertain of her emotions throughout the book. I understood her feelings towards both Jack and Phillip, although I did envisage her spending the rest of her life as a Queen married to Phillip with Jack on the side. Until that event which kind of killed that image!
The Queen (new, not old) was the perfect "bad guy", and I did wonder what it would be like for her and Queen Mary to team up, rather than hate eachother. I also liked the concept of the Queen taking a bite out of an apple too, as I saw it as a sort of comeuppance.
THE ENDING.
Oh my god the ending. It drove me bonkers! It was a little too familiar to Romeo and Juilet for my liking, and although Phillip didn't kill himself, I kind of expected him to do so. I really did feel sorry for the King at this point though. He had lost his second wife, AND his 'new' daughter, all in 24 hours? He had everything he could have wanted and then had it all so brutally taken away, I kind of wished I could have climbed through my Kindle and given him a massive hug!
**SPOILERS ENDED**
So, overall, I really did enjoy this book, and for that reason I am giving it a 3.5/5 stars. Why not five?
I didn't really enjoy the ending, in my view fairytales are supposed to be all happily ever after, although I do realise that this is a re-telling and people interpret things differently. However, this does mean that this cannot be open to a sequel, which I am pretty pleased about, as many books are created as standalones before suddenly being transformed into series' or trilogies.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys fairy tale re-tellings, or someone who loves to indulge in YA every now and again without having to feel bogged down at the thought of attaching themselves to another series!
I read this one pretty quickly for me, it took me 12 days to read from start to finish, and at roughly 360 pages long, you'll fly through it too!
Thanks for reading, if you wish to purchase the book the links are below. But for now, I shall leave you with the following:
"In one small journey the world between royalty and peasant collided, erasing social class momentarily"
Kindle Edition: http://amzn.to/1DramKs
Paperback Edition: http://amzn.to/1DrasSf
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