Author: Gregory Maguire
So, I'm going to start off by saying I'm a fan of Gregory Maguire's. Wicked is one of my favorite books and I have a few of his other books. I asked for this book for Christmas and after I got it, I didn't really feel like reading it. It just didn't sound as good as when I first got it. And I was pretty disappointed by A Lion Among Men and I really didn't want to be disappointed again. But, as it usually happens, I ran out of new books, so it was either read this or start re-reading again. So I read it and came to a realization.
I was crazy for not wanting to read this right away.
I thought it was a very good read (obviously). I wouldn't put it in my top 10 or anything, but it was pretty good. =D
Ok, so a quick summary. Like Maguire's other books, I call this a "twisted fairytale". It's a spin-off of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. I also found out that several characters were based off of real life people. So I thought that was pretty interesting and something I'm not used to in his books. But anyways, back to the summary. It begins in 1502 when Bianca de Nevada is 7-years-old at the farm, Montefiore, where she lives with her father, Vincente, and their staff. One day, Cesare Borgia and his sister Lucrezia, the children of the Pope, visit Montefiore in order to give Vincente a quest to find an object of extreme value. Vincente is forced to leave his daughter under the care of Lucrezia as he begins his quest. Years later, he is still gone, and no one has ever heard from him. I won't tell you the rest from here, because that just ruins the whole thing. I recommend that you read it yourself.
I'll admit that this book won't be for easy or quick for younger readers or people who don't read very much. Like all of Maguire's books, the writing seems like it was written in a previous time period, which was the intention, so Maguire majorly succeeded in that part. I enjoyed it, because I like books where you have to think a little, and when the language is a little older, it's provokes more thought, so that's perfect for me. I'm not sure about you, but it's good for me.
The plot moves at a good pace. Not too fast, not too slow. It's not exactly the same as Snow White, which is good in my opinion, so it's unpredictable. I love all the little twists along the way. It kept me guessing and interested. However, there is this one part that made me angry, because throughout the rest of the book, you wouldn't have been to tell who was narrating. Was it an older person, or younger person? Was it a guy or a girl? You wouldn't be able to rule it out at all. However, as a girl, I can tell when a guy tries to explain "feminine issues". I don't want to get into all the gory details, but the way Maguire tried to explain it made it honestly seem a lot worse then it is, which not many people are capable of doing, if you ask any girl. So that makes me kind of mad and makes me laugh as well. =D But other than that one part, I thought everything made sense either to better the plot or to contribute to the characters....
So... I think I got everything I meant to talk about. I hope that this review helped anyone who actually reads it, and if you're interested in talking more about it, whether agreeing or disagreeing with me, or you just want to discuss, IM me at KristiSqueak on AIM or e-mail me at Kristi_Reads@yahoo.com. Anyways, the book I'm reading right now is the over-obsessed Twilight series (again) and I'll probably give you my very opinionated review on that next. =D
Thanks for reading!
Love,
Kristi
