Lo, Malinda - Ash
Thu, Oct. 29th, 2009 12:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterI am so behind on posting write-ups to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
50books_poc that it's not even funny, not to mention how behind I am on posting about books in general.
Maybe I should bite the bullet and create an "a: poc" tag for my own blog?
Anyway, this is a retelling of Cinderella. Ash (Aisling) lives in a world in which people are slowly starting to believe that fairies are only stories. Ever since her mother died, Ash has been drawn to Fairy, believing that she will somehow get to see her mother again through them.
To be honest, I probably would not have picked up this book had I not known that a) Lo was Chinese and b) it was a lesbian romance. I'm pretty bored of Euro-centric fairy tale retellings, and even more so of fairies. I'm not entirely sure the book overcomes my ennui for either of those things, but Lo put enough twists into the Cinderella story to keep my interest. I very much liked Kaisa, the King's Huntress, and the entire history of the Huntresses (always female). Ash herself, her stepmother, and her sisters aren't very different from the fairy tale, and I was a little disappointed, because I always want the evil step mother and step sisters to be rewritten somehow.
The book is also oddly structured in that the prince basically gets no page time, replaced instead by Ash's not-quite-friendship with the fairy prince Sidhean. I thought Lo set up some plot elements that didn't pay off, and the final resolution of the conflict went much too quickly. However, Ash and Kaisa's romance is extremely cute and sweet, and I particularly loved a few of the scenes concentrating on Kaisa's slightly open shirt and the glimpses of her neck.
Spoilers
I was especially confused that Kaisa had nothing to do with Ash's final thing with Sidhean. I thought that Lo had set up the King's Huntress as the liminal figure who could travel between the worlds of humans and fairies, and I thought Kaisa would have gone in to rescue Ash. I'm glad Ash rescued herself, but it also meant all the stories about the King's Huntresses and fairies ended up foreshadowing something that didn't happen. It also would have been nice to have a less confusing ending; I'm still not sure how Kaisa got out of her bargain, and the ease with which she did so felt like a let down after all the build up.
Still, this is cute, and some of the awkward interactions between Ash and Kaisa remind me of Robin McKinley. Definitely looking forward to what Lo does next.
Links:
-meganbmoore's review
50books_poc that it's not even funny, not to mention how behind I am on posting about books in general.Maybe I should bite the bullet and create an "a: poc" tag for my own blog?
Anyway, this is a retelling of Cinderella. Ash (Aisling) lives in a world in which people are slowly starting to believe that fairies are only stories. Ever since her mother died, Ash has been drawn to Fairy, believing that she will somehow get to see her mother again through them.
To be honest, I probably would not have picked up this book had I not known that a) Lo was Chinese and b) it was a lesbian romance. I'm pretty bored of Euro-centric fairy tale retellings, and even more so of fairies. I'm not entirely sure the book overcomes my ennui for either of those things, but Lo put enough twists into the Cinderella story to keep my interest. I very much liked Kaisa, the King's Huntress, and the entire history of the Huntresses (always female). Ash herself, her stepmother, and her sisters aren't very different from the fairy tale, and I was a little disappointed, because I always want the evil step mother and step sisters to be rewritten somehow.
The book is also oddly structured in that the prince basically gets no page time, replaced instead by Ash's not-quite-friendship with the fairy prince Sidhean. I thought Lo set up some plot elements that didn't pay off, and the final resolution of the conflict went much too quickly. However, Ash and Kaisa's romance is extremely cute and sweet, and I particularly loved a few of the scenes concentrating on Kaisa's slightly open shirt and the glimpses of her neck.
Spoilers
I was especially confused that Kaisa had nothing to do with Ash's final thing with Sidhean. I thought that Lo had set up the King's Huntress as the liminal figure who could travel between the worlds of humans and fairies, and I thought Kaisa would have gone in to rescue Ash. I'm glad Ash rescued herself, but it also meant all the stories about the King's Huntresses and fairies ended up foreshadowing something that didn't happen. It also would have been nice to have a less confusing ending; I'm still not sure how Kaisa got out of her bargain, and the ease with which she did so felt like a let down after all the build up.
Still, this is cute, and some of the awkward interactions between Ash and Kaisa remind me of Robin McKinley. Definitely looking forward to what Lo does next.
Links:
-
meganbmoore's review