Fairest of All: A Villains novel
Serena Valentino
The First book in the New York Times Bestselling series Villains.
Goodreads Summary:
The tale of the young princess and her evil stepmother, the Wicked Queen, is widely known. Despite a few variations from telling to telling, the story remains the same—the Queen was jealous of the girl’s beauty, and this jealousy culminated in the Queen’s attempt on the sweet, naive girl’s life.
Another tale far less often spoken of is the one that explains what caused the Queen to become so contemptuously vile. Still, some have attempted to guess at the reason. Perhaps the Queen’s true nature was that of a wicked hag and her beautiful, regal appearance a disguise used to fool the King. Others claim that the Queen might have hated the girl for her resemblance to the King’s first wife. Mostly, the Queen is painted as a morally abhorrent woman who never loved another being during the course of her miserable life.
In fact, the theories about exactly what cause the Queen’s obsessive vanity and jealous rage are too numerous to catalog. This book recounts a version of the story that has remained untold until now. It is a tragic tale of love and loss, and it contains a bit of magic. It is a tale of the Wicked Queen…
My Review:
9.5/10
SHOCKER: Another Snow White book, but this was a different kind of book. Firstly I loved how it was short and sweet. Ok so not really “sweet” more like creepy. I do like a book with some sad components written into the story, and Fairest of All did a great job of giving me just what I need.
To be honest, there were TWO big reasons I read this book. One of which was finally keeping my promise from a while back when I read the ARC of Cold Hearted (link here) and because I said I would eventually get around to it. I was shocked by how much I enjoyed this short book.
Fairest of All is somewhat a prologue to Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Even after reading Mirror Mirror by Jen Calonita, (link here) I never got around to watching it. Those reasons aren’t important. I know the story of Snow White, I mean who doesn’t?
There were a couple of main characters in this book , but the story was based on the Evil Queen, but before she had a hatred for Snow White and what caused her to be who she is. The three other main characters were the Odd Sisters, and they play a part in making the queen evil, but they have their own storyline which ties into the Evil Queen’s story.
Serena Valentino does a splendid job of writing her own story and not taking it from other sources. This book got very scary and I didn’t see it coming how graphic it would be. I don’t understand how it is classified as a children’s book, because of the amount of gore, the vocabulary which younger readers might struggle to understand.
After reading this phenomenal book, I am going to the library and taking out the next one The Beast Within, and now I have some very high expectations that I need to be met.
OVERALL:
This was a fun and scary, fast paced read. I read it in less than a week. I feel like a 13 year old would be able to grasp the story, but younger than that might have a hard time following what is going on.