Ash & Bramble by Sarah Prineas

Publication September 15th 2015 by HarperTeen

Young-Adult, Retelling, Fantasy, Fairy Tale, Romance

eARC provided by publisher via Edelweiss

My Rating 3.5 stars

When the glass slipper just doesn’t fit…

The tale of Cinderella has been retold countless times. But what you know is not the true story.

Pin has no recollection of who she is or how she got to the Godmother’s fortress. She only knows that she is a Seamstress, working day in and out to make ball gowns fit for fairy tales. But she longs to forsake her backbreaking servitude and dares to escape with the brave young Shoemaker.

Pin isn’t free for long before she’s captured again and forced to live the new life the Godmother chooses for her—a fairy tale story, complete with a charming prince—instead of finding her own happily ever after.

Sarah Prineas’s bold fairy tale retelling is a dark and captivating world where swords are more fitting than slippers, young shoemakers are just as striking as princes, and a heroine is more than ready to rescue herself before the clock strikes midnight.

---

REVIEW This is an interesting take on Cinderella. Not my favorite, but it is a good read. Quite dark, with points that reassure us of why we love the original tale. It started out very slow for me, but by the end I was pleased that I enjoyed it more than I thought I would when I first started reading it. It took me nearly 2 weeks to finish it, and I blame that on my ability to not really get into it in the beginning.

I can’t say that I liked the first half of this book. This is a story that is being told by our heroine, Pin, that even I can admit doesn’t seem really reliable. She made no sense! Doing impossible things in the situation that she is in. The Overseer goes to great lengths to keep her detained, so I don’t see how she can all of a sudden have the means to escape. But, of course, she has to fall for Shoe. He’s, like, the answer to all of her problems. And the way that she goes about narrating her own fairy tale, who’s to say that the reader is to just trust how she spins this story.

Now, once I got passed a certain point, I started to focus on WHAT was going on, rather than the HOWS and WHYS. And, boy, this was like reading a great compilation of fairy tales being retold by an eccentric person. No offense, but eccentric works for me. It’s what I am! Put it this way; Shrek, is what this book reminds me of. I swear there is more than just Cinderella going on here. If you are a fan of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, then you can easily point one out. Shoe is definitely one character that I figured out quickly. As in, The Elves and the Shoemaker. If you’ve seen Shrek, then you can see why those movies remind me of this book. It’s all about the combining of happily-ever-afters, in my opinion.

It started slow, but by the end I was satisfied. I’m not sure if this is just a standalone, because the ending left room for more. Would I read it? Yes, I most definitely would like more. I’d like it to be more direct than this one though. I understand twists, but I’d like to be able to get to the point rather than be given riddles. I know, I know; It’s a retelling after all. So there’s bound to be twisters throughout. If you are a fan of retellings, fairy tales, fantasy, etc… then this is a good book to read. It starts kind of weird and slow, but picks up around halfway. Recommended!