Review: Not your Momma's Snow White
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 12 13, 2013
This is NOT your Momma's Snow White! Nor is it Disney in any way......The book was gifted to me by the author in return for an honest review.All I can say is WOW. Let's be honest, how many of us want to know what happens when the guy gets the girl and they set off into the glorious sunset. Happily ever after *sigh* I know I do.This is just that story, it is intelligent, clever and beautifully written. Snow White is in mourning, she has been for the past year since her beloved Charming passed away. Leaving her all alone. Her daughter Raven is getting married and not even that can bring her out of wallowing in her grief.Wanting to be left alone, she finds herself in the very last place she expected to be. The chamber of her evil step mother, alone except for the fabled talking mirror. Only is it a fable? Can the mirror really talk back? Snow White is about to find out. Through the course of an afternoon Snow White delves into her past, into her childhood and the horrors the evil Queen Regent Arglist bestowed on her. Her terror, humiliation and degradation were all palpable.The mirror, while it could talk couldn't offer anything more than what was already inside of Snow White. She, believing she had been abandoned by all those she loved the most, especially her husband went on a painful, yet poignantly beautiful journey of self discovery.Re-living her meeting with Charming (and I laughed out loud at Charming helping her recover from the poisoning), her marriage, her life at court trying to bring together two kingdoms, her inability to give Charming an heir and the subsequent realization she had the strength to carry on without him. She had hope, love and more importantly she wasn't quite as a lone as she thought she was.This was a beautifully well written, well researched story that was reminiscent of the great Brothers Grimm. Don't expect any 'hi ho's' or singing princesses dancing with furry, cute forest creatures. This is a gritty, meaty and sometimes horrific story of a child being abused, fleeing for her life and trying to find her place in a world that was ready to take her throne. She was full of self doubt and loneliness.Yet is was a story of hope, of how even when you lose yourself if you look within your own heart and past, you might actually never have gone anywhere at all. I had a lump in my throat towards the end, when the last piece came together with Charming.There was a bigger message in the story and I loved that, I loved David's style of writing and would urge him to write more like this. It was a refreshing read that I'm glad I said yes too.Read more of my reviews at Never Judge a Book by its Movie [...]