Fairest of All: A Tale of the Wicked Queen by Serena Valentino
Published August 18th 2009 by Disney Press
Star Rating - ***
Goodreads Challenge - 44/50
Popsugar 2017 Reading Challenge - A book with a subtitle.
Synopsis from Goodreads
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…
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 Thoughts
I
picked this up as part of the Popsugar reading challenge as I was quite
limited with choice for this prompt however, I have previously read and
enjoyed The Beast Within and I like fairy-tale retellings so I was
looking forward to this story. The premise of this book is quite simple,
it is basically the back story to the Wicked Queen from Snow White. It
tells us where she came from and how she came to be the Queen we know
from the Disney version of the story.
Overall I enjoyed this book however, I didn't like it as much as I liked The Beast Within. I felt the story was quite liner and lacking in depth. The story we were given was quite surface level and I would of liked it if it had dug a little deeper. The overall length of the book was only about 250 pages and I would of liked it to of been a bit longer so we could of had some more time to explore the characters and the events in the story. In particular how she ended up the way she did as I felt the ending of the book was quite rushed, things seemed to happen all at once. In terms of writing style I don't really have much to say. It wasn't bad however, there was also nothing to me that stood out.
I will definitely be continuing on in the series as I have enjoyed both I have read so far and I like learning more about the different characters however to me this was a fairly average read.
Overall I enjoyed this book however, I didn't like it as much as I liked The Beast Within. I felt the story was quite liner and lacking in depth. The story we were given was quite surface level and I would of liked it if it had dug a little deeper. The overall length of the book was only about 250 pages and I would of liked it to of been a bit longer so we could of had some more time to explore the characters and the events in the story. In particular how she ended up the way she did as I felt the ending of the book was quite rushed, things seemed to happen all at once. In terms of writing style I don't really have much to say. It wasn't bad however, there was also nothing to me that stood out.
I will definitely be continuing on in the series as I have enjoyed both I have read so far and I like learning more about the different characters however to me this was a fairly average read.
Overall Rating
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