A review by taelights
A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow

adventurous emotional hopeful fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix

2.5

This was a very fast easy read that I read all in one sitting to get myself out of my current reading slump as it was the shortest thing on my bookshelf. I had bought this book knowing not much about it at all other than it was a queer Sleeping Beauty retelling that a person on TikTok said was good so I decided to buy it because I enjoy retellings of classic fairytales but this was not what I expected at all and I should have probably looked into the description more before picking it up so that's kind of on me for not doing more research before slapping it on my to-read list but I was blinded by the cool cover and that it was a retelling of a fairytale I enjoy by a good author.

This book was alright. The subject matter wasn't for me to begin with (but again that's on me for not doing any research into the book and taking queer Sleeping Beauty retelling at face value) and the overall story left me very disappointed in the end and wanting a lot more. The story is extremely fast-paced I realized this is just a novella but it would have been better if it had been expanded on even just a bit more as I felt a lot of details were very vague and a lot of it was skimmed over. Like I still don't understand the ending especially like did they end up polyamorous or??? I honestly have no fucking idea. 

The world-building didn't make sense at all and required a lot of suspension of disbelief. Such as her phone working in a medieval other dimension and the fact that the characters from the medieval world didn't seem to have any questions or reactions to modern-day technology. Plus a few other things that felt off and wrong because the world-building was just weird. 

Idk overall this book wasn't for me. It wasn't horrible but it wasn't good either. It was more just confusing and disappointing lol. 
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