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A review by liacooper
Wytch & Prinze by Kassandra Lea
1.0
**ARC received from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Ok, full review time...
I requested this book for review because the cover is unarguably gorgeous, and I'm pretty much always down for a fairytale retelling. I think it needs to be pointed out that in the blurb and in the text itself, the author and publisher draw explicit parallels to the fact this intended to be a Princess & the Pea retelling. This is important.
This is a short story, which again was just what I was in the mood to read (to break up reading a couple longer books I've been working on for #tometopple). I won't rehash the blurb w/ my own summary because, honestly, the blurb says it all.
I'm really sad that I had to give this a 1-star but in all honesty I cannot rate it higher. My rating takes into account a couple of categories: writing quality, story cohesion/pacing, characters, general enjoyment. Unfortunately, this short story didn't deliver in any of these categories.
Things I liked: the cover....sadly that's all I can say.
Things That Didn't Work For Me:
1. The Story: I'm going to lead with this because it was a glaring issue that just distracted me throughout the entire story. Like I pointed out above, it was clearly stated in the actual story text that this is riffing off of The Princess & the Pea (at several points the two protagonists have a COPY of the Hans Christen Anderson fairytale and read it/reference it), but the way this is executed was not only insipid and a little creepy, but also showed that no one involved in the writing or editing process really understands what the Princess & the Pea is about??? Like....in this short story, the protagonist (Wytch) goes about sabotaging every bed in his house in an attempt to drive his love interest into bed with him. The Princess & the Pea is about separating royalty from peasantry????
Let me break this down a little (like I said, I love me some fairytales). Essentially, the Princess & the Pea is about a prince who needs to/wants to marry a princess of real royal blood. He's encountered several women at this point who claimed royal blood but revealed their uncouth heritage through a series of social blunders. When he meets the Princess of the title, he decides to subtly (key here again is SUBTLY) put a pea at the bottom of her bed, because only someone of truly royal lineage would have the well-bred, nearly divine ability to detect the (undetectable to peasants) discomfort.
The point was not to make her bed so horridly uncomfortable she had no other recourse than to fall into bed with him. It was about identifying someone of true nobility. So, the plot of Wytch & Prinze sort of falls apart as anything to do with Princess & the Pea, ESPECIALLY when the protagonist has a copy of the fairytale, is seen reading it, thinking about, and deciding to implement it. It would have stood on its own WITHOUT this really hammered intention to make it a retelling, riff, remix, but since that's so central to the story and the blurb I feel it's justified holding them up to one another.
/facepalm.
(sidenote: Wytch also makes a reference to the Emperor's New Clothes and it's couched in terms that again, sort of show that the author doesn't know what the underlying point of that tale is either, but that's neither here nor there).
2. The Characters: the whole plot hinged on two characters not speaking to one another, which CAN WORK, I can be total trash for miscommunication, but....eh. For such a short story, I think the author gutted the possible tension by revealing the fact that both parties were already pining for one another. It just came across as frustrating and insipid. Also the dialogue between the two men was incredibly stilted.
On top of that, Wytch's behavior was just unpleasant. His attempts had forcing Renwick into his bed weren't cute or charming. If the relationship between them had been less weirdly predatory I probably could have ignored some of the other issues, but *shrug*
3. The Writing: Lot of mixed imagery, verging on mixed metaphors. The dialogue between the men was incredibly odd and stilted. Lots of awkward phrases. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to quote from a netgalley arc, esp since it might still undergo editing. There weren't any typos, but definitely some head scratching constructions that could have been smoothed over. Not my cup of tea.
Tl;dr
This was not pleasant to read. I really had to force myself through the second half because it's a review copy. It's unfortunate because I love the idea of see more short fairytales floating around. I read The Bread We Eat in Dreams last month and am dying for another short story collection in that kind of vein. Alas.
Ok, full review time...
I requested this book for review because the cover is unarguably gorgeous, and I'm pretty much always down for a fairytale retelling. I think it needs to be pointed out that in the blurb and in the text itself, the author and publisher draw explicit parallels to the fact this intended to be a Princess & the Pea retelling. This is important.
This is a short story, which again was just what I was in the mood to read (to break up reading a couple longer books I've been working on for #tometopple). I won't rehash the blurb w/ my own summary because, honestly, the blurb says it all.
I'm really sad that I had to give this a 1-star but in all honesty I cannot rate it higher. My rating takes into account a couple of categories: writing quality, story cohesion/pacing, characters, general enjoyment. Unfortunately, this short story didn't deliver in any of these categories.
Things I liked: the cover....sadly that's all I can say.
Things That Didn't Work For Me:
1. The Story: I'm going to lead with this because it was a glaring issue that just distracted me throughout the entire story. Like I pointed out above, it was clearly stated in the actual story text that this is riffing off of The Princess & the Pea (at several points the two protagonists have a COPY of the Hans Christen Anderson fairytale and read it/reference it), but the way this is executed was not only insipid and a little creepy, but also showed that no one involved in the writing or editing process really understands what the Princess & the Pea is about??? Like....in this short story, the protagonist (Wytch) goes about sabotaging every bed in his house in an attempt to drive his love interest into bed with him. The Princess & the Pea is about separating royalty from peasantry????
Let me break this down a little (like I said, I love me some fairytales). Essentially, the Princess & the Pea is about a prince who needs to/wants to marry a princess of real royal blood. He's encountered several women at this point who claimed royal blood but revealed their uncouth heritage through a series of social blunders. When he meets the Princess of the title, he decides to subtly (key here again is SUBTLY) put a pea at the bottom of her bed, because only someone of truly royal lineage would have the well-bred, nearly divine ability to detect the (undetectable to peasants) discomfort.
The point was not to make her bed so horridly uncomfortable she had no other recourse than to fall into bed with him. It was about identifying someone of true nobility. So, the plot of Wytch & Prinze sort of falls apart as anything to do with Princess & the Pea, ESPECIALLY when the protagonist has a copy of the fairytale, is seen reading it, thinking about, and deciding to implement it. It would have stood on its own WITHOUT this really hammered intention to make it a retelling, riff, remix, but since that's so central to the story and the blurb I feel it's justified holding them up to one another.
/facepalm.
(sidenote: Wytch also makes a reference to the Emperor's New Clothes and it's couched in terms that again, sort of show that the author doesn't know what the underlying point of that tale is either, but that's neither here nor there).
2. The Characters: the whole plot hinged on two characters not speaking to one another, which CAN WORK, I can be total trash for miscommunication, but....eh. For such a short story, I think the author gutted the possible tension by revealing the fact that both parties were already pining for one another. It just came across as frustrating and insipid. Also the dialogue between the two men was incredibly stilted.
On top of that, Wytch's behavior was just unpleasant. His attempts had forcing Renwick into his bed weren't cute or charming. If the relationship between them had been less weirdly predatory I probably could have ignored some of the other issues, but *shrug*
3. The Writing: Lot of mixed imagery, verging on mixed metaphors. The dialogue between the men was incredibly odd and stilted. Lots of awkward phrases. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to quote from a netgalley arc, esp since it might still undergo editing. There weren't any typos, but definitely some head scratching constructions that could have been smoothed over. Not my cup of tea.
Tl;dr
This was not pleasant to read. I really had to force myself through the second half because it's a review copy. It's unfortunate because I love the idea of see more short fairytales floating around. I read The Bread We Eat in Dreams last month and am dying for another short story collection in that kind of vein. Alas.