50 in '12: #17
Sep. 24th, 2012 08:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sakon76Title: Ash
Author: Malinda Lo
Length: 264 pages
I read an interview with the author somewhere, and the premise of this book (Cinderella wherein the titular character falls for the Royal Huntress rather than the Prince) sounded interesting. So I got the book from the library and read it during the first half of the drive out to Las Vegas.
The best I can say about it is that it has potential. The world-building (particularly about Faerie) is interesting and well done. Unfortunately, Aisling/Ash/Cinderella? PASSIVE AS ALL GET OUT. Which makes for a boring read. I could never root for her because she never had any feelings about anything other than longing for the Faerie world! And then there were one-off things, like instead of the singular ball in the Disney version, or the three balls in the traditional fairytale, there was a hunt, and a ball. Two things, two wishes. It needed to be either one or three; narratively, two didn't work. Also the less-evil stepsister saying Ash was prettier than the more-evil stepsister. I would find this more compelling if we had ever been given any kind of visual description of any of them. Instead it reads as a throwaway, "oh yes, mustn't forget that part of the fairytale" afterthought.
Verdict: I do want to read Huntress, the prequel, about Ash's love interest, because she was an actual goddamn active character. But this book? While the high concept was interesting, the execution totally fails. Skip it.
Author: Malinda Lo
Length: 264 pages
I read an interview with the author somewhere, and the premise of this book (Cinderella wherein the titular character falls for the Royal Huntress rather than the Prince) sounded interesting. So I got the book from the library and read it during the first half of the drive out to Las Vegas.
The best I can say about it is that it has potential. The world-building (particularly about Faerie) is interesting and well done. Unfortunately, Aisling/Ash/Cinderella? PASSIVE AS ALL GET OUT. Which makes for a boring read. I could never root for her because she never had any feelings about anything other than longing for the Faerie world! And then there were one-off things, like instead of the singular ball in the Disney version, or the three balls in the traditional fairytale, there was a hunt, and a ball. Two things, two wishes. It needed to be either one or three; narratively, two didn't work. Also the less-evil stepsister saying Ash was prettier than the more-evil stepsister. I would find this more compelling if we had ever been given any kind of visual description of any of them. Instead it reads as a throwaway, "oh yes, mustn't forget that part of the fairytale" afterthought.
Verdict: I do want to read Huntress, the prequel, about Ash's love interest, because she was an actual goddamn active character. But this book? While the high concept was interesting, the execution totally fails. Skip it.
