Electronic resource
English language
Published Aug. 6, 2009 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.
In the wake of her father's death, Ash is left at the mercy of her cruel stepmother. Consumed with grief, her only joy comes by the light of the dying hearth fire, rereading the fairy tales her mother once told her. In her dreams, someday the fairies will steal her away. When she meets the dark and dangerous fairy Sidhean, she believes that her wish may be granted.
The day that Ash meets Kaisa, the King's Huntress, her heart begins to change. Instead of chasing fairies, Ash learns to hunt with Kaisa. Their friendship, as delicate as a new bloom, reawakens Ash's capacity for love--and her desire to live. But Sidhean has already claimed Ash for his own, and she must make a choice between fairy tale dreams and true love.
Entrancing and empowering, Ash beautifully unfolds the connections between life and love, and solitude and death, where …
In the wake of her father's death, Ash is left at the mercy of her cruel stepmother. Consumed with grief, her only joy comes by the light of the dying hearth fire, rereading the fairy tales her mother once told her. In her dreams, someday the fairies will steal her away. When she meets the dark and dangerous fairy Sidhean, she believes that her wish may be granted.
The day that Ash meets Kaisa, the King's Huntress, her heart begins to change. Instead of chasing fairies, Ash learns to hunt with Kaisa. Their friendship, as delicate as a new bloom, reawakens Ash's capacity for love--and her desire to live. But Sidhean has already claimed Ash for his own, and she must make a choice between fairy tale dreams and true love.
Entrancing and empowering, Ash beautifully unfolds the connections between life and love, and solitude and death, where transformation can come from even the deepest grief.
first read this when i was like 9-10. just finished reading it at 19 and its still one of my favs.
Content warning A few light spoilers.
I loved this book, and it is something that I really wish had been available to me when I was younger; I needed something like this, especially as I was struggling to understand myself.
I'm torn on the lack of labels, but it bothers me less because it's a WLW novel. We know that the characters are queer, even if we don't know that they're lesbians or bisexuals (though, it feels like Ash would definitely be bisexual with the inclusion of the relationship to Sidhean) Either way, that's one of the few things I had minor issues with but can definitely overlook because of the ending (it's not erasing the WLW aspect by Ash or Kaisa finding their way to a bloke later on). In a strange way, I'm also torn on liking that.
What I really want is more of Sidhean. I want to understand his motivations more and see more of the relationship between him and Ash's mother in order to understand why it is that she cursed him; I want to know more, especially as it is an event that impacted Ash. It'd be nice if she found that out, too.
This a quiet and powerful Cinderella retelling with a focus on the MC's interior world rather than the exact details of the vaguely antiquated setting. It's a fairy tale steeped in fairy tales, discussing strange bargains of dubious origin as the MC first is connected to her departed mother then seeks escape from her abusive stepmother via fairy tales. It portrays the MC's two romantic options of a sort in a way that makes them obviously two different paths, two different ways the rest of her life could go, not just two people she cares for. Even the possible pairing which looks straight at a glance feels queer in the way that two bi people dating is unquestionably queer even if it looks straight to an outsider. The sapphic pairing made me want to scream for them to kiss already, I'm not kidding about this being a slow burn all …
I'm a sucker for basically anything pitched as "[story you know], but with lesbians." Still, I'm usually skeptical of Cinderella retellings--how many more ways can Cinderella be retold? But this book has an enchanting (pun intended) mix of the scary sort of fairy tales, the warm and fuzzy sort of fairy tales, and tension between the real and fairy worlds that makes it feel genuinely unique. I adored Kaisa as a character, and the romantic tension between her and Ash was woven as elegantly as a medieval tapestry. That, plus the casual inclusion of other queer women in the storytelling, made this a favorite among the many, many fairy tale retellings I've read over the years.
I'm a sucker for basically anything pitched as "[story you know], but with lesbians." Still, I'm usually skeptical of Cinderella retellings--how many more ways can Cinderella be retold? But this book has an enchanting (pun intended) mix of the scary sort of fairy tales, the warm and fuzzy sort of fairy tales, and tension between the real and fairy worlds that makes it feel genuinely unique. I adored Kaisa as a character, and the romantic tension between her and Ash was woven as elegantly as a medieval tapestry. That, plus the casual inclusion of other queer women in the storytelling, made this a favorite among the many, many fairy tale retellings I've read over the years.
Queer rewriting of Cinderella, that unfortunately takes far too long to get going.
Retelling of the Cinderella fairytale with a "twist." Great concept, not so great in execution. I really wanted more of the fairy part of the fairytale, and it was a massive letdown when Ash's time in Fairy was explained away by "and then she woke up," or something to that effect. All in all, an easy read, but mostly just left me with a meh feeling.
Retelling of the Cinderella fairytale with a "twist." Great concept, not so great in execution. I really wanted more of the fairy part of the fairytale, and it was a massive letdown when Ash's time in Fairy was explained away by "and then she woke up," or something to that effect. All in all, an easy read, but mostly just left me with a meh feeling.
3.5
I couldn't unpack my suitcase and get comfortable in this story. I could however take off my shoes and hang out for a little while.
I couldn't unpack my suitcase and get comfortable in this story. I could however take off my shoes and hang out for a little while.
Much has been made of Malinda Lo's being a "lesbian Cinderella", and while that's certainly true, it's only true up to a point. If you're familiar with the fairy tale in question, you'll certainly see most of its familiar elements in play here: the young girl whose mother's death leads to her father's disastrous second marriage, the cruel stepmother and stepsisters, the ball attended in secret, the Prince. There's even a fairy protector.
But even with these familiar elements in place, Lo nonetheless builds a lovely tale that is at once similar to and quite a bit different from that of Cinderella. The fact that this version of Cinderella is much more interested in the King's Huntress--and that the Prince isn't really ever in the picture--is only part of this. The rest of it is simply charming worldbuilding, where Lo takes the pieces of the tale we all know and …
Much has been made of Malinda Lo's being a "lesbian Cinderella", and while that's certainly true, it's only true up to a point. If you're familiar with the fairy tale in question, you'll certainly see most of its familiar elements in play here: the young girl whose mother's death leads to her father's disastrous second marriage, the cruel stepmother and stepsisters, the ball attended in secret, the Prince. There's even a fairy protector.
But even with these familiar elements in place, Lo nonetheless builds a lovely tale that is at once similar to and quite a bit different from that of Cinderella. The fact that this version of Cinderella is much more interested in the King's Huntress--and that the Prince isn't really ever in the picture--is only part of this. The rest of it is simply charming worldbuilding, where Lo takes the pieces of the tale we all know and assembles them into a setting uniquely her own. Ash's fairy protector in this version of the story is in fact a fairy godfather of sorts, with much more of a backstory and much more characterization than you've probably seen in most traditional Cinderella retellings. The interaction Sidhean has with Ash is the heart of the magic of this story, and as a fan of storys involving fairies and the Sidhe, I can say that it pleased me greatly. It was unearthly and compelling.
On the other hand, there is definitely a queer element to this tale, and the best thing about it is how refreshingly underplayed it is. The fact that Ash loves another female is not the conflict of the story in the slightest; it's just there, without angst, without either Ash or Kaisa being considered out of the ordinary for where their romantic interests lie. And if Ash's interaction with Sidhean is the unearthly driving force of the story, her affection for Kaisa is its sweet, earthly counterpoint, pulling it ultimately towards a very human resolution.
If there's any complaint I have about this book, it's that it's honestly too short. The length's probably fine for YA, but I came out of it wondering "that's it?!" and quite anxious for more. Since it was so unexpectedly short, what conflict there is in the story felt a little too easily resolved--but that's really something I didn't mind at all, given the overall win of the rest of it. Four stars.
