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A review by maddyd51
Letters to Zell by Camille Griep
3.0
The princesses from our childhood grew up in Letters to Zell and you might not recognize them. For one thing, Snow White has a seriously foul mouth. In this novel, you get to catch up with Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Rapunzel after their stories have ended. The focus is on how they find their way once their Pages are complete and how their decisions affect the complicated friendship that has developed through the years.
This novel was a fun and entertaining read, but I was about 25 percent through Letters to Zell before I really understood what was going on. Then the characters were not just caricatures of their fairy tale stories - they began to stand on their own. However, none of them were particularly appealing to me, so I wasn't quite sure for whom I should be rooting.
The epistolary format of this novel also seemed to fall away mid-letter at times, which was distracting. It might bother some that the correspondence is one-sided, but I found that device introduced a puzzle that needed to be figured out by the reader. Another puzzle was remembering the difference between the original stories and the Disney versions - Letters to Zell relies on the former, not the latter.
The best aspect of this book was the world building - characters from the stories of my youth were running restaurants, unicorn ranches, and bakeries. I would definitely read another book set in this world, though I would hope for at least one character who was more likable than those included in Letters to Zell. I would love to learn more about why princes seem interchangeable and how the fairy godmothers operate.
Give this novel a try if you love fairy tale retellings, but expect some foul language from our dear Snow White.
{I received an eARC copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.}
This novel was a fun and entertaining read, but I was about 25 percent through Letters to Zell before I really understood what was going on. Then the characters were not just caricatures of their fairy tale stories - they began to stand on their own. However, none of them were particularly appealing to me, so I wasn't quite sure for whom I should be rooting.
The epistolary format of this novel also seemed to fall away mid-letter at times, which was distracting. It might bother some that the correspondence is one-sided, but I found that device introduced a puzzle that needed to be figured out by the reader. Another puzzle was remembering the difference between the original stories and the Disney versions - Letters to Zell relies on the former, not the latter.
The best aspect of this book was the world building - characters from the stories of my youth were running restaurants, unicorn ranches, and bakeries. I would definitely read another book set in this world, though I would hope for at least one character who was more likable than those included in Letters to Zell. I would love to learn more about why princes seem interchangeable and how the fairy godmothers operate.
Give this novel a try if you love fairy tale retellings, but expect some foul language from our dear Snow White.
{I received an eARC copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.}