An intriguing mix of classic fairytale and the wild west. This story focuses quite a bit on Snow White's childhood, then sort of skims over her classic flight from the evil stepmother. Much of the story is a sort of dream-like retelling of events, and it never quite stitches them into story. While really I enjoyed what there was, I hesitate to accord a full five stars because I really wanted the same book to be about three times as detailed.

The setting is very intriguing, particularly the suggestions of frontier magic and witchcraft lurking at the corners, but those are seldom drawn into much focus. On one hand, the bits we do see are fascinating, but the story just flowed past them. Snow White spends time in a frontier village of women, for example, and has some really interesting encounters there, but it's only a few dreamlike fragments there before the tale just moves away again.

A stronger story arc might have helped, but it also might have detracted from the sort of trance-like flow of the events in Snow White's life. Personally, I'd have preferred more of a traditional arc, leading to confrontation and conclusion, but I can appreciate the dreamlike artistry of what was done here.