I was really excited about the premise of this book - a snow white retelling with a feminist twist! However when I started reading I felt quite disappointed, and the book really didn't live up to my expectations unfortunately.
Poisoned tells the story of Princess Sophie (Snow White) after the Hunstman successfully cuts out her heart. She survives with the help of seven strangers and goes on a quest to regain her heart and take the throne back from her evil stepmother. Elements of the original gory fairytale are interwoven with new themes to create a dark fantasy retelling.
Firstly, what I liked about the book. I haven't read a Snow White retelling before, so it was definitely unique in that sense. The idea behind who the real villain was (I won't say who it is, so there's no spoilers) was an interesting concept which gave the original fairytale a big twist.
I had several problems with this book. The first being that it's branded as a feminist retelling, but the story gave me no feminist vibes at all. The MC Sophie is pretty naïve and useless at times, and is constantly being rescued by male characters. Only in the last few chapters does Sophie do anything strong or independent, and throughout the story she's highlighted more for being kind and loving - great character traits, but I felt more like the moral of this story was 'be kind' rather than anything to do with feminism, equality or patriarchy, as it was advertised.
I couldn't really connect to any of the characters. I felt Sophie lacked depth and there were so many side characters along the way that you don't get to know any of them very well. Everyone instantly fell in love with Sophie, which didn't leave a lot of room for development. Also, I was really thrown off by the fact that the seven men had a giant spider and ladybug as their cook and housekeeper, who they could semi-communicate with? There was no mention of any magical creatures anywhere else throughout the story, and this really wasn't explained as to why or how they got there.
The whole story is narrated by the Hunstman, which doesn't make a lot of sense because he's only in the story for the first 60 pages and at times the pov seems to switch around between characters in the middle of scenes. I just didn't get on with the writing style, which felt more like middle-grade at times and made me cringe in places.
Overall, I could only rate this book 2/5 stars. I've seen other very positive reviews for it, so perhaps this is just personal preference, but it wasn't an enjoyable read for me.
Poisoned tells the story of Princess Sophie (Snow White) after the Hunstman successfully cuts out her heart. She survives with the help of seven strangers and goes on a quest to regain her heart and take the throne back from her evil stepmother. Elements of the original gory fairytale are interwoven with new themes to create a dark fantasy retelling.
Firstly, what I liked about the book. I haven't read a Snow White retelling before, so it was definitely unique in that sense. The idea behind who the real villain was (I won't say who it is, so there's no spoilers) was an interesting concept which gave the original fairytale a big twist.
I had several problems with this book. The first being that it's branded as a feminist retelling, but the story gave me no feminist vibes at all. The MC Sophie is pretty naïve and useless at times, and is constantly being rescued by male characters. Only in the last few chapters does Sophie do anything strong or independent, and throughout the story she's highlighted more for being kind and loving - great character traits, but I felt more like the moral of this story was 'be kind' rather than anything to do with feminism, equality or patriarchy, as it was advertised.
I couldn't really connect to any of the characters. I felt Sophie lacked depth and there were so many side characters along the way that you don't get to know any of them very well. Everyone instantly fell in love with Sophie, which didn't leave a lot of room for development. Also, I was really thrown off by the fact that the seven men had a giant spider and ladybug as their cook and housekeeper, who they could semi-communicate with? There was no mention of any magical creatures anywhere else throughout the story, and this really wasn't explained as to why or how they got there.
The whole story is narrated by the Hunstman, which doesn't make a lot of sense because he's only in the story for the first 60 pages and at times the pov seems to switch around between characters in the middle of scenes. I just didn't get on with the writing style, which felt more like middle-grade at times and made me cringe in places.
Overall, I could only rate this book 2/5 stars. I've seen other very positive reviews for it, so perhaps this is just personal preference, but it wasn't an enjoyable read for me.