“The word that Lynet hated so much had sounded like a luxury to Mina. She had tried to think of a time when she had ever felt delicate, but she couldn’t for as long as she could remember, she had always felt herself covered in invisible fractures, a map of scars like the ones that ran up and down Felix’s arms. Perhaps she was so broken that she had become unbreakable.”

Girls Made of Snow and Glass is an exquisite retelling of Snow White, reinventing a tale about jealous queens and helpless maidens into a story of female empowerment. The familiar tale is dissected with precision and carefully imbued with new layers of complexities. The final result is a gorgeously rendered story about a glass queen and a snow princess, both working to defy the roles the men in their lives have forced upon them.

This book was very, very good. I live for fairytale retellings and this is among the best of the best. It's very imaginative. I think all of the new additions to the classic story were FANTASTIC. The most important being the relationship between the two main characters, Mina and Lynet. The character arcs in this book are so dynamic and well-thought out. I think the one mishap of the book is that the plot is weaker but if you love good character work, then this book is for you.

If you're a fan of fairytales but want something different and unique from them, then this is for you. I recommend this absolutely! Can't wait to see what Bashardoust comes up with next.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the review copy.

While I definitely enjoyed my experience reading this book, there are some issues with pacing and character development in the middle that left me wanting just a bit more.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. As always, thank you Netgalley.

Snow White's Queen meets A combo of Ana and Elsa in the form of a Snow Queen.
Told in dual narratives, Mena, with a heart of glass, becomes the step-mother of Lynet, made of snow.

Lynet's narrative begins with her around the age of 16, with her loving step-mother and father and the new promise of love with the royal surgeon. Mena's begins with her also roughly 16, on her journey from the South to visit the castle up north.

Prior to this book, I had been debating if I liked or disliked dual narratives and why they work. This one works unlike the last book, because Mena's story in the past doesn't hold the promise of something being achieved or not that we can already see in Lynet's timeline. (i.e. <i>Furyborn</i> being ALL ABOUT if one of the lead's will live through trials... even though we see her alive.) Instead, Mena's story line is about learning who she is and trying to grasp and figure out if she can properly find love, despite what her father has told her.

Lynet, on the other hand, is trying to come to terms with her childhood ending and her father wanting to be Queen.

Overall, it's a quick read. I like the romance - it isn't overpowering and no one is doing stupid stuff for love - and I also really love the mother/daughter dynamics. Overall it's a bit slow moving in the beginning, but definitely picks up towards the middle.

Great re-telling, loved the dark undertones and the frankenstein feels. Very well written! Just found it a bit slower for my taste.

An interesting retelling of Snow White with a feminist twist on it. I always love it when authors do retellings of Disney princesses, but I especially love it when they give depth to the villains, which the author executed exceptionally well with this story. This book was full of beautiful imagery, and intriguing dialogue, but the only thing that I felt lacking was the action. Nothing really seemed to happen in that regards. There was a lot of character-driven plots, which I loved, but since nothing seemed to happen until the last 70 pages or so, I found it getting just a bit dull. The magical aspect of the story helped to keep the story lively, though, so I can't fault it too much. I really did love the book, overall!

My Thoughts:
I really loved the first half of this book! This Snow White retelling was super original and had some really fascinating aspects and twists on the classic Snow White fairytale. That’s my favorite part about retellings — seeing the unique twists that authors come up with and how they fit into this brand new story and still seeing the bones of the fairytale underneath it all.

I really enjoyed the different POVs and dual timeline flashing back to Mina (the stepmother) as a child and then present time with her as the queen and Lynet, her daughter. There was just so much good backstory with Mina. I also really enjoyed her relationship with Lynet and how things unfurled to follow the fairytale.

I actually think I liked the past timeline POVs much better — it just was so interesting to get insight on why people were the way they are now and how things came to be. Present time began to bore me and unfortunately there was a good chunk between 60-80% where the pace dropped drastically and the plot was thin and my interest waned. I wish the plot had been a little bit stronger because there was such a good foundation and I really did love the first half quite a bit. The romance between Nadia and Lynet could’ve been developed more in my opinion but they were definitely cute.

In Short…
This one started off really strong with riveting dual timeline POVs, original twists on a classic fairytale, and such an amazing mother-daughter relationship — plus exciting magic and just this great magical atmosphere. However the second half disappointed me with a dragging pace. This still presents such a great retelling though that I’d have to recommend especially if you are a fan of fairytale retellings!

Posting May 18

Around the time Girls Made of Snow and Glass came out, I saw a lot of mixed reviews. Though it's unfortunate I'm getting to this book so late, there's also something nice about coming in after the hype has died down. Generally, when there are mixed reviews, I sort of expect I'll end up on the lower end of the spectrum, but it's always lovely when I'm wrong about that, as I was in this case. Girls Made of Snow and Glass is a lovely feminist retelling of Snow White all about found family and the strength of women.

The writing captivated me immediately. Bashardoust's prose tastes absolutely delicious on the tongue, and Girls Made of Snow and Glass is one of those books where every sentence feels like a well-crafted treat. Reading the prose alone here was a sheer joy.

In Girls Made of Snow and Glass, Bashardoust uses an interesting and risky (at least in YA) technique: the POV alternates between Lynet  and her step-mother Mina. I deem this risky because, when I (or presumably most people) pick up a YA novel, I'm not there to read about boring adults. (As an adult, this hurts me to admit, but it's true.) This technique does get used on occasion, and generally I find the adult POV boring, even if it's about the adult as a teen, mostly because you already know how that teen's life will turn out so it's just depressing and/or anticlimactic. In this case, though, it really works.

Mina's story begins in her teen years for the first part of the book but then jumps to the present day. It's a rare occasion where I think I liked the part with her as an adult better, but the scenes with Mina as a teen were very necessary. Mina has a complex emotional landscape, and her upbringing is central to the plot. Without that view, the novel would not feel as emotionally full.

Lynet's a reluctant princess. Everyone tells her how much like her late mother she is, especially father. She, however, doesn't want to be dainty and delicate like this woman she never knew; she wants to be strong and adventurous, much more like her beloved step-mother Mina. I love that Lynet doesn't have a rhapsodic view of her late mother, and I love even more that she doesn't hate her step-mother. Just this one twist sets Girls Made of Snow and Glass apart from most narratives. And it's not one of those cases where her step-mother seems horribly unreliable from the outset and you wonder why Lynet is so trusting; they have a real bond.

Though I'd love to talk about more of the plot of this book, I also don't want to spoil it, because, though it's largely predictable, as fairy tales are, there are a couple of little twists that work very effectively. Mina's father makes a villain more frightful for his realism. Ultimately, Girls Made of Snow and Glass is slower of pace, but the emotional landscape of the two heroines is so rich and well-arced that the book never felt slow at all.

Obviously, the f/f romance was a delight, but it's also very much not the focus of the novel. Bashardoust handles a couple of the princely moments in very cute, creative ways, and the connection between the girls works. I also love that it's not instalovey like most fairy tales; it's insta-attraction, but they don't rush to the finish line. I would have liked to know more about Nadia; she feels a bit distant to me, which is why this wasn't a favorite ship, and she did seem a bit young for her role. However, I can't complain too much because it was cute, and I want more f/f fairy tales ASAP.

Truly, it's hard to believe that Girls Made of Snow and Glass is a debut novel, because it feels so incredibly polished.

Girls Made of Snow and Glass is an interesting reimagining of the classic fairy tale Snow White. When I first read the synopsis for this book I was really excited because it seemed like everything I love in a story-strong women leads, magic, adventure, check, check and check. So I was a little disappointed when I starting reading the book and realized that while on paper this novel had everything going on it for me to love, I just could not get 100% invested with the characters. Don’t get me wrong, I still really enjoyed the story and think it is a very original take on Snow White. I also really appreciated female power undertones to the story, and that the two female characters had a strong loving bond that was ultimately unable to be broken. I also liked that one of the main characters was presented as LGBTQIA without this being the central plot of the story, but instead this was just an aspect of who she was as a person, as I think it is important that all populations see themselves reflected in a variety of ways in literature.

I adored this book! I found it to almost be a twist on the Snow White fairytale, which I love. I enjoyed the fantasy (which I usually steer away from fantasy) of this story. It felt like a grownup version of some of my favorite parts of old fairytale books as a child. I loved all the characters, even the villains. As the story develops you begin to understand the underlying reasons of why the villains act as they do. It’s a behind the veil look, so to speak. I adore this book and the beautifully written prose. I would highly recommend!

This was an interesting novel that, for some reason, I just did not connect with. Perhaps it was the style. Perhaps it was the world. Perhaps it was the characters. I just am not sure.

I love retellings and am particularly fond of feminist retellings, which Girls Made of Snow and Glass certainly was. It was entirely focused on the relationships between women (it's strongest point, in my opinion). But there was just something that kept me from becoming emotionally invested in the characters or the world. So, sadly, it was a bit of a disappointment, even with the strong writing.

This dark Snow White retelling had a promising storyline, but somewhat flopped in execution. It was very slow to start, and some of the writing was clunky - I found myself having to reread a few sentences here and there that were somewhat confusing. However, the shortcomings of the writing was made up by the character complexity and development. I very much enjoyed the alternative version of events portrayed in this particular reimagining.

Fairy tale retelling of Cinderella with a feminist twist. I liked some of the characters but it was not my style of retelling.

Girls Made of Snow and Glass is a feminist fairy tale that borrows elements of Snow White and the Snow Queen stories to create a genuinely new tale that celebrates women claiming their own strengths and helping each other instead of tearing them apart. The story is told from two points of views into two alternating timelines that ultimately converge at the book's climax.
In the present story line, Lynet has grown up in the shadow of her mother, Emilia, who died during child birth. She is an exact physical replica of her mother and has been sheltered by her over protective father. Lynet is burdened by her father's expectations that she emulate the mother she's never known and become the rightful Queen of the Southern Territories; instead, she idolizes her stepmother, Mina, who's always treated Lynet with tenderness and has no aspirations to be queen at all.
In the past story line, we follow Mina as a girl who is desperate to find love and affection from her domineering and wicked father Gregory, only to be told that she is incapable to love and have anyone love her. She welds her beauty as power and makes her way to the court of the Southern Territories. When the king dies, only one can claim the throne and the other must die.
Through Lynet's and Mina's perspectives, we see how these two women share many similarities though their motives maybe entirely different. Lynet and Mina are three dimensional, flawed characters. Lynet is passive and has accepted her fate of following her father's life plan for her until she stops to asks herself of what she wants. It takes her a long time to identify her strengths and to view the throne as something else besides a ball and a chain. Unlike Lynet, Mina already knows her strengths but she has to learn self-love and acceptance. There were many times Mina that teetered off the cliff of being a villain that we all recognize as the evil queen, but her self awareness and conscious has always saved her. What I found exceptional and refreshing is that both women genuinely care and admire each other.
The pacing of the story is slow burning that matches well with the character development and might deter some readers, but the characters are so worth it. Their epiphanies take time to occur as the characters stumble many times until they reach the satisfying and revolutionary conclusion. Magic is used in the right amounts in the story and their were times that I wished it was explained a bit more clearly. There is some romance subplots for each women, but the main focus of the story is the relationship between Lynet and Mina. Girls Made of Snow and Glass is a character driven fairy tale that refuses to use common tropes and is filled with magic, adventure, and self discovery.

I really tried to get into this one but i just couldn’t. It was so slow through out the entire book, it forever for me to even finish it. I’m sad i couldn’t enjoy this one since I love retellings so much. Oh well, better luck next time for me.

Gah, this was so EFFING GOOD. It took me a damn long time to finish, but I loooved it. It lost me in moments, but the bleeding heart of the story, two women who learned that they were more than their origins, that they could shape their own futures, was my favorite part of this. There was such a beautiful, deep love between Mina and Lynet, and one that was threaded throughout the course of the book, and woven into every interaction between them. And I adored the blossoming romance between Lynet and Nadia, a girl with her own ambition but who decided what she wanted could be more than she thought. Such a fantastic, original, and truly feminist take on Snow White. I loved this story of girl power, friendship, and breaking free of those who would try to mold you into a person you don't want to be. It was a slow-burn kind of tale, but one that is worth it for that ending. JUST. GAH. I LOVED.

Rating: 4.5 stars

I loved this so much! When I first saw that it was a Snow White retelling I was so excited. Also, the comparison to Frozen definitely helped in swaying me to read it! It was an interesting read, albeit a bit slow at times, but the worldbuilding and plot were amazing and I couldn't get enough. Great read if you love retellings!

Unfortunately, I was unable to finish this book. It was just a bit too slow for me and I couldn't get into it. On a positive note, I liked the author's writing style and it appeared to be well-written.

I DNFd this, I'm sorry I just really couldn't get into it!

I absolutely adored this book and would recommend it to anyone looking for a fairytale retelling with a twist. So many elements of this story came together and satisfied me completely! Thank you for this opportunity.