Fairest by Gail Carson Levine

Fairest is a retelling of the tale of Snow White. My verdict? Not as good as Ella Enchanted. This book is certainly not the fairest of them all.

It was interesting to see the way Levine introduced her character's appearance as grotesque, flipping the traditional Snow White on its head, but I never really understood what made her ugly. She was larger than everyone else? She wasn't blonde? Why do these people not find dark hair attractive? As a brunette, I was puzzled and secretly vowed never to visit Ayortha since I don't think I can face that kind of prejudice. Are they Nazis? Basically, I left with the general impression that her broad shoulders and stature made her personal appearance entirely unappealing.

The story moves forward in a predictable fashion, which it should, since it is a retelling of a fairy tale. The singing grates after a while, which was unfortunate as it made me sympathize with the "villain" rather more than one should. I don't think people should run around bursting into song over the silliest things. Even musicals save the songs for more important things than whether your egg whites are properly beaten (note: this is a hypothetical example, not one which actually appears in the book).

The ending was unsatisfactory. Perhaps this says more about me than it does about the book, but I prefer to have proper villains, and there was not a really good one. One could argue that the magic mirror was the villain, but his involvement was so minor that I found it difficult to really give him that important of a position.

Length: shortish to middling

Genre: Youth fantasy

Additional Notes: none.