Jennifer Donnelly has done it again! I loved her twist on Cinderella’s story in Stepsister and then she released Poisoned, a spin on Snow White and it is so good! The characters were charmingly funny and sometimes devious, the writing was exceptional, and the story incorporated the core of the fairytale while still making its own. Classic fairytales are often enjoyable, but it’s always great delving into the darker roots from where they came from. I’ve fallen in love with her stories twice now and I’m so excited and hopeful for another one!
Snow White’s nemesis is her stepmother in the original story and I loved this spin on the devious character. You can tell she doesn’t want Sophie hurt, which means she’s harsh to help her. She’s setting her up much like parents do with their kids, disciplining them so that they are ready for the real world. That’s kind of the way their relationship works. Countless times she sets out to harm Sophie on the orders of someone else and the true villain but manages to escape. It takes Sophie’s character a long time to learn Adelaide’s lesson, which goes perfectly with the theme of fairytales and they are there to teach us lessons. Yes, Adelaide tries to hurt her multiple times so her approach isn’t right, but at the core, you can tell she feels for the girl. I think she sees a bit of herself in her, which makes it harder. Donnelly didn’t paint Adelaide’s character with a vicious stroke and I enjoyed this slight creative change because it redeemed her character a bit, kind of like Regina in the earlier seasons of the TV show Once Upon A Time. These characters are more complex than the original texts and that helps to show that people aren’t just one thing, good or bad. They have gone through things that have influenced them to react the way that they do when situations present themselves. I can see multiple sides of Adelaide which weren’t present in the original story and I loved that!
I never thought I would be going into a fairytale retelling feeling sorry for the original bad guy, but for Adelaide, I kinda do. She’s trying to be held at a standard that befits her role in society as Queen, but can’t simply due to gender. Something she had no control over but has to deal with all the fall out because of it. Her constant connections to the gender divide just made me like her even more. Her evilness spins very well with her rage against this divide and she challenges it. This is such a true statement and this is why despite everything I still loved her character.
“The queen gave the glass a bitter smile. ‘I give them no actual cause to diminish me, so they must invent one. Nothing scares a weak man more than a strong woman.”
Reading her perspective was entertaining and had great observations throughout, like this one above! Every time I wanted to hate her for something she did to Sophie she would say something like this to point out her own grief and sadness. This story has you feeling for Adelaide almost as much as the heroine of the story. It’s incredible!
“Sophie smiled now, thinking of the brothers as she started her hunt. She was so grateful for their kindness and care, and she had already grown very fond of them. Schatzi, she’d learned was a sensitive soul. He had red hair and a round face that was very often flushed with emotion Jakob, a decisive man of action, was the eldest. He had gray in his hair and beard, lines in his face. Jeremias was salty-tongued and merry, though Sophie had the feeling his bluff good cheer was a defense, for she’d caught glimpses of a deep sadness in his eyes. Johann was quiet and deliberate, always lost in thought. Joosts was the peacemaker. Josef, who always had hay stuck to him, was happiest tending his chickens, cow, and pigs. Julius was gruff but smart and insightful, and kind, too, in his way. He was the one who’d read to Sophie at night as she’d convalesced, to keep her boredom at bay.”
This snippet is a great description that breathes life into the seven dwarves from the story. Their names are different, but the range of personalities remain. With such a large cast, its hard to have a lot of characters shine, but reading this, told from Sophie’s perspective, was heartwarming. They don’t have much time on the page as Sophie is separated from them for large amounts of time, so with limited scenes, this was a brilliant way to incorporate them into the story and to showcase each one, even if it is brief. Clever writing!
Next stop, Arno. Arno is the man Sophie meets in the graveyard after a certain twist (which shall not be spoiled here) and he’s so brutally candid, it’s hilarious. Sophie has a righteousness that most royalty possess and that immediately clashes with Arno’s poverty stricken life. She again can’t see what he’s getting at, but every time he gets a chance, he teaches her a lesson about another divide, the rich vs the poor. It was infuriating how she couldn’t get it, but it only let his character shine and have more scenes because he was a voice of realisation for her. There’s a lot this naive main character needs to learn and at times, it was infuriating to read Sophie’s perspective, but the supporting characters helped her see it, even if it took them a long time to do it.
“She’d trusted Haakon, because he was beautiful and dazzling, because he’d spoken a few romantic words to her and made her believe that he loved her. Her heart had been her undoing. Yet again.”
I have to give her a little break because she was working with an erratic clock for a heart, but it’s still a shock when you read it. She’s up and down constantly and that makes it hard to know where she’s at mentally, because you know her makeshift heart isn’t exactly functional. Looking back the scenes with her going off her rocker weren’t entirely bad. They did lend a whimsical humour that does fit with the fairytale theme, it’s just jarring to read so tread lightly.
Like I said, Arno was the voice of reason for Sophie and I loved his character! It’s like when you yell at the TV while watching a horror movie when the character opens that door or calls out to ask if anyone’s there. You know the moments that are so dumb you can’t believe they do it every time. It was kinda like that, but rooted once more is another valuable lesson.
“I love fairytales. They always give it to you straight. Nothing the maiden was afraid of killed her; fear itself did. There’s a lesson in that story.”
This is how the new villain is tied in with this story and it was brilliant! This is yet another deduction by Arno, obviously! It was a very clever foreshadow that surprised me. It introduces a more complicated villain structure than first perceived in the original. This is a tale where the stepmother or the huntsman isn’t the main evil to snow white. Unexpected and fresh. They’re even portrayed as victims to an extent.
Let’s move on to romance. The initial love interest could have been Hans’s brother from Frozen sums it up pretty well. Sophie’s heart blinded her from seeing it until it was almost too late to save herself and that is when she meets Will. He’s a grumpy, irritated, and brooding archer and I loved him. I don’t usually fall for those types, but there was something about him that just played really well off of Sophie’s erratic emotions. There’s a scene where she mistakes him for a dog and his reaction is so good. This was a hardcore slow burn romance, but it was worth it!
‘He is not your prince!’ Sophie shouted. ‘He cares nothing for you and will use you for cannon fodder to satisfy his own ambition. You will die for him, because that is the kind of ruler he is. I will die for you, because that is the kind of ruler I am.”
I had a lot of problems with Sophie and I can’t put it all on her messed up heart, however, as the story progressed, I found it was the characters she met along the way that helped her grow into the Queen she should be and I loved that. She grows tremendously by the end of this and I think that made all of her problematic and naive scenes worth it. Eventually, Sophie was actually standing up and embracing her destiny and it was all perfect. Everything I wanted her to do and was worried she wouldn’t she did. So I’m incredibly happy for how this whole story went!
“Love is a fearsome thing. It is braver than generals, stronger than fortresses. It opens graves and pulls rings off corpses. It sits up through the long, lonely night with a failing child. It fashions hearts out of scraps and bits and rusty things and makes them beat on, no matter how many times they break.”
Poisoned is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of October 20th 2020.
Will you be picking up Poisoned? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
From Jennifer Donnelly, author of the acclaimed New York Timesbestseller Stepsister, comes a fairytale retelling that’ll forever change the way you think about strength, power, and the real meaning of “happily ever after.”
Once upon a time, a girl named Sophie rode into the forest with the queen’s huntsman. Her lips were the color of ripe cherries, her skin as soft as new-fallen snow, her hair as dark as midnight. When they stopped to rest, the huntsman took out his knife . . . and took Sophie’s heart.
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Sophie had heard the rumors, the whispers. They said she was too kind and foolish to rule — a waste of a princess. A disaster of a future queen. And Sophie believed them. She believed everything she’d heard about herself, the poisonous words people use to keep girls like Sophie from becoming too powerful, too strong . . .
With the help of seven mysterious strangers, Sophie manages to survive. But when she realizes that the jealous queen might not be to blame, Sophie must find the courage to face an even more terrifying enemy, proving that even the darkest magic can’t extinguish the fire burning inside every girl, and that kindness is the ultimate form of strength.
