The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines
ISBN: 0756405327
I bought this book.
Did you find yourself unsatisfied by classic fairy tales growing up? Tired of happy endings only being for beautiful (and humble and obedient) princes and princesses and witches always being evil and dying in the end (and worse, everyone celebrating the death)? Me too. Its no wonder we’ve seen a resurgence in twisted or even anti-fairy tales lately, particularly as a generation of people who grew up being Disney-fied come to realize that happily ever takes work, and even then it isn’t guaranteed. Shrek, Wicked and countless others celebrate the twisting of the fairy tales we know, the idea of happily ever afters and of them being for everyone (ogres and fairy cursed alike).
The Stepsister Scheme starts with the idea that princesses, like the rest of us, do not necessarily live happily ever after. Neither do they remain the kind of people who sit around and wait to be rescued and fairy gifts are rarely a good thing. Here Sleeping Beauty is a martial arts master from the Middle East who unconventional beauty and tragic curse led to some heinous abuse. Snow White is a mirror-witch who was forced to destroy her mother (and teacher) when her mother killed Snow’s true love (and tried to kill Snow), and Cinderella is a new princess, deeply in love with her prince (who has disappeared) uncomfortable with her new position in the kingdom (which has more secrets than she expected) and has to swallow her desire to be nice in order to face down her stepsisters who still very much want to see her dead and the prince in their arms.
More than just being a clever twist on fairy tales and breathing some real life psychology into the tales, The Stepsister Scheme is plain old good writing. Hines layers in the fascination of how things might really go for these very human people manipulated and traumatized by fairies (and other things) with the familiarity of the tales that borne them, as well as some truly creative bits of world building that marks this story as his own. Glass swords, haunted trees, living clothing and prehensile hair all blend right in with the traditional fairytale bits for one fantastic story. In fact the only way this could have been more enticing to me as a reader was if Hines found a way to do a side story (or few) juxtaposing fairytale fantasy with modern times (hint hint). Highly recommended, fun yet meaty The Stepsister Scheme is a great read through and through.