A beautifully meta shattered fairy tale. Zinnia has always identified with Sleeping Beauty. Born with a genetic illness, she has always known her days are numbered. On her 21st birthday, she slips through the multiverse to encounter another Sleeping Beauty in need of rescue. As the two quest to save themselves, they learn that there’s more to a fairy tale than meets the eye.

Recommended for fans of Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children. This novella would be great for readers who want a lot of substance in a seemingly shorter story.

A novella written by Alix E. Harrow, "A Spindle Splintered" combines the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty with multi-dimensional world travel. Zinnia Gray is twenty-one and terminally ill. She knows that this will be her last birthday. She has also been obsessed with Sleeping Beauty since she was a kid. What she doesn't realize is that her life is actually fitting the Sleeping Beauty narrative, so when she jokingly pricks her finger on a spinning wheel in an abandoned tower, she is whisked to another dimension where another Sleeping Beauty type is trying to escape her own curse.

I love how this book starts out with Zinnia calling out every horrible thing about the Sleeping Beauty story, while admitting that she still absolutely loves it. Zinnia starts out as a character who has somewhat given up and accepted the inevitability of her death. By the end of the story, however, she realizes that she can't just sit around and wait to be saved (or not be saved) and needs to live her life. She ends up as a very strong character and I loved watching her development through the story.

Overall I greatly enjoyed this story and my major complaint is that it wasn't long enough. I wish there had been a bit more world building and getting to know the characters. I would still highly recommend this, especially if you are a fan of Harrow's previous works.

This book was so fun!
Zinnia was born with a rare condition known as Generalized Roseville Malady, named after her hometown as this condition is specific to her region as a result of an industrial accident that led to environmental poisoning in the towns water. She is doomed to only live to the age of 22. And she doesn’t know it yet, but she is a modern take on sleeping beauty, a fairytale which she has always been obsessed with due to it being so closely aligned with her own life, but the princess wins in the end.

This story basically follows Zinnia as she accidentally jumps into the dimension of a more traditional Sleeping Beauty’s world, where she seeks to save this sleeping beauty since she cannot save herself. This leads to exploration of the existence of infinite realities of sleeping beauties.

This novella was short, and therefore I didn’t expect it to do a deep dive into the world building or science fiction of the multiverse in it. Zinnia is a funny and charming character who’s voice is unique and resonant. The feminist lens of this retelling is empowering and exciting. It felt campy at times, but that seems unavoidable given the circumstances. I hadn’t read anything by Alix E. Harrow up until this point (although she’s long been on my TBR!) and I’m so grateful to have gotten the opportunity to read this ARC before publishing. I would and will recommend this to friends! Thank you Alix E. Harrow, Netgalley and Macmillan for this opportunity!

Alix E. Harrow can write her grocery list and I'd be first in line to read it. I also love fairy tale retellings, so this was pretty much guaranteed to be a favorite for me. This modern Sleeping Beauty/multiverse retelling was short but clever, funny, touching and sweet. Zinnia Gray has a terminal illness and believes she has an "expiration date." She's obsessed with Sleeping Beauty so on her 21st birthday her friend throws her a Sleeping Beauty themed party where she "gasp" pricks her finger and suddenly finds herself smack in the middle of a fairytale with a princess who needs saving. It's a quick, fun adventure where the girls need to save each other. I wish it was longer or that we'd get to see more of Zinnia Grey in future stories.

There are a LOT of fairy tale retellings/reimaginings out thete, so if you're going to spend time with one, it had better be good. Luckily, Harrow's reimagining of the Sleeping Beauty story is a good one, though as a novella it's disappointingly short. Zinnia Gray has only a short time left to live, being struck by a fairy-tale-ish disease. When she is magically transported to a medieval style castle she finds herself fighting for herself and every princess/woman who has ever been denied her liberty. It's strange and fun and has a worthy message that sometimes you have to have the gumption to save yourself instead of waiting for someone else to do it. Review from e-galley.

This retelling of “Sleeping Beauty” not only takes us through a door [one of Harrow’s favorite tropes] into the multiverse, but switches the story around to be a feminist manifesto with a lesbian slant.

Zinnia Gray is twenty-one, and presumably will die soon, having been one of the unfortunate victims of corporate malfeasance in rural Ohio. No one born with the resulting genetic damage ever made it to age twenty-two, and as the story begins, it is Zinnia’s twenty-first and presumably last birthday.

For her last year, she informs us:

“. . . really I have nothing planned but a finite number of family game nights, during which my parents will stare tenderly at me across the dining room table and I will slowly suffocate under the terrible weight of their love.”

Because Zinnia knew she was cursed to die, she identified with the story of Sleeping Beauty, going from being a child with character sheets to a college student majoring in Folk Studies and Anthropology at Ohio University. Her best friend “Charm” (short for Charmaine) arranges a 21st Sleeping Beauty themed birthday party for Zinnia in an old abandoned tower replete with a spindle. When Zinnia pricks her finger on it at the stroke of midnight as a joke, suddenly she is thrust into a different universe, waking up in the bedroom of Princess Primrose. Primrose was cursed to prick her own finger on her 21st birthday, which was the day before. She would then fall into a deep sleep for 100 years, unless she was rescued by the kiss of a handsome prince. So far, her father the King has had all the spindles destroyed, but Primrose knows it is only a matter of time. The only trouble is, Princess Primrose has no desire to be rescued by the pompous Prince Harold or any other prince for that matter - she would prefer a princess, if the truth be told.

Thus Zinnia ends up with a couple of problems to solve: she needs to get back to her own universe, but first she needs to help Primrose escape her curse. She is aided by the fact that she still has some memory left on her smart phone, which improbably still works, and can get assistance from Charm. Zinnia snaps a photo of Primrose to send to Charm, who, gay like Primrose apparently is, is immediately smitten. Added to her devotion to her best friend, Charm has plenty of motivation to work on a solution.

This all may sound over-the-top, but Harrow manages to carry it off. With Zinnia’s sense of irony and self-awareness, she helps convince readers into believing in her and in this story that gets more convoluted by the chapter but also more “charming,” as it were.

One of my favorite passages has Zinnia explaining to Primrose why she would find Zinnia’s world appealing: “You wouldn’t be a princess anymore, but you’re hot and white and young, so you could be pretty much anything else you wanted.”

As for Zinnia, she discovers that as one moves among universes, “fairy tales are flexible about gender roles.” She also finally figures out what she wants to do with the rest of her life, however long it may be: “I’m just looking for a better once-upon-a-time.”

Discussion: As Harrow has done in her other books, she turns preconceptions upside down with her through-the-door-to-other-worlds perspective and her unblinking honesty in interrogating hard subjects. What happens when you know someone you love is going to die? All too often, others get so focused on their own pain of the impending loss, they either suffocate or alienate the person who actually has to endure their own curse. We also see the how the perceptions of time - “every minute has to count” versus “all the time in the world” - between those who are dying and those who aren’t - are as different as if these people *did* reside in different universes. And of course, in so many ways, they do. Harrow shows how fairy tales aren’t so unlikely and unfounded, when you universalize them into common human experiences.

Evaluation: I have found all of Harrow's books so far to be entertaining, thought-provoking, and offering fresh enlightened perspectives on a number of subjects.

I haven’t read a ton of novellas but this was amazing. Everything I expected from Alix and more! If anything this will get me into more novellas

No one writes fantasy like Alice E Harrow and this novella is a perfect rose plucked straight from a lush storybook. A fierce, melancholy, and hopeful take on Sleeping Beauty.

#ASpindleSplintered #NetGalley
A fun and exciting adventure that will delight fans of Sleeping Beauty.

A Spindle Splintered is a short, feminist, twisted retelling of Sleeping Beauty. I’ve never really been a fan of Sleeping Beauty, and Harrow’s commentary on how it’s no one’s favorite fairy tale is fairly entertaining. For our heroine, Zinnia, however, the story feels familiar: Zinnia has a genetic disorder that will kill her before her 22nd birthday. On her 21st birthday, Zinnia pricks her finger on a spinning wheel...and finds herself in an alternate version of the Sleeping Beauty tale.

The multiverse aspect of this story is obviously the highlight, and it’s fun to see several different version of Sleeping Beauty come together, especially since not all the versions of the story are the one with which most of us are familiar. Zinnia is an interesting lead, and her determination to help Primrose even at the cost of her own health—and possibly life—is admirable. I also liked slowly seeing Primrose’s true personality come through; I think it would be fun to read more of her story, either before or after her adventures with Zinnia.

I also liked that the ending was left fairly open. It heightens the sense of adventure and lets us imagine where Zinnia might end up and what she might get up to next. I usually like my stories to have a bit more closure, but having an open-ended story here feels more fantastical and like the right choice for Zinnia after everything she’s experienced.

That being said, I didn’t totally love this novella. There are many things left unexplained, and yes, I know it’s magic, but I would like a bit more of an explanation of how things work. The pop culture references feel a bit heavy at times, and everything feels a bit rushed. I’m sure this is intentional since this is just a novella, but I would like a little more character development outside of just Zinnia.

Overall, A Spindle Splintered was a fun, dimension-hopping twist on a familiar fairy tale, but it wasn’t an outstanding read for me.

Alix E. Harrow is one of my favorite authors, and A SPINDLE SPLINTERED did not disappoint. This is a novella that reimagines the story of Sleeping Beauty. Zinnia, the main character, has an unusual medical condition that will kill her before her twenty-second birthday. On her twenty-first, her best friend throws her a Sleeping Beauty-themed birthday party and she is magically transported to Perceforest, where she meets Primrose, the princess cursed to prick her finger on a spinning wheel and sleep for a hundred years. Zinnia sees this as an opportunity to escape her own life and help Primrose escape her fate.
I loved Zinnia, Primrose, and Zinnia's best friend Charm. This story is full of witty humor and magic, and as always, Harrow's writing is atmospheric and completely consuming. 5/5 stars

This was a surprisingly amazing short story. I usually don't love short stories, and I haven't had much luck with fairy tale retellings lately but this was a pleasant surprise!

“We dying girls, we sorry girls, gallows-bound...”

Thank you so, so much to Tor.com Pub for sending me an influencer box for A Spindle Splintered, which I will soon post pictures of on my bookstagram: greenteareader. Alix said she put me on the list herself and my heart is still singing. And thank you to Netgalley for the digital copy as well.

A Spindle Splintered follows 21 year old Zinnia Gray, a girl with an incurable, terminal illness she was born with. No one with the disease lives to 22 years old. And since she’s a dying girl, somewhere along the way amidst hospital beds and tests, she became obsessed with Sleeping Beauty. She watched the movie, she read all the alternate versions she could, and ended up graduating high school early and getting a degree in folklore, so Zinnia knows Sleeping Beauty is the least feminist folktale of them all.

On Zinnia’s 21st birthday, her best friend, a stem lesbian named Charm, throws her a Sleeping Beauty themed party and when Charm dares her to prick her finger, Zinnia does, and falls into a fairytale world with another Sleeping Beauty.

If Zinnia can’t save herself from her fate, she wants to try to save Primrose from hers, and the clock is ticking for both of them.

A Spindle Splintered is an amazing feminist take on the least feminist [western] folktale of them all. It’s self-realized and takes a good, critical look at different versions of Sleeping Beauty while still being an enjoyable, humorous novella with a mostly happy ending. The sisterhood and friendship that ties these characters together are truly inspiring and brings about a fierce desire to cherish and defend them. Alix Harrow truly never disappoints.

I loved Zinnia’s drive, I loved Primrose, I loved Charm, I loved the queer representation, the pop culture/meme references, and, as always with Alix, the writing.

I highly recommend this for people looking for a short and quick read (I think the novella is under 130 pages, and some pages are the gorgeous fairytale silhouettes) and love empowering retellings and sapphic rep.

Alex E Harrow has an incredible voice for magical worlds and wonderful stories that make anyone feel like the hero of their own story, and this book is no exception. I adored how all the iterations of Sleeping Beauty were called upon and the wonderful strength of girls from all walks of life that are found within. Excellent story that should be added to the classics,

I loved this Sleeping Beauty retelling! I am a sucker for a retelling anyway, but A Spindle Splintered is such a creative and unique perspective on a story that we already know. I appreciated so much that Harrow didn't gloss over the idea that fairy tales aren't always sunshine and happiness but have real problems underneath the pretty outside. It was fast and compelling and I flew through this short story.

** I was given a free copy of this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review **

This is adorable. If you like fairy tale retellings or time-travel multiverse stuff then please go forth. It's really well written and because it's a Novella, it cuts straight to the chase. No muddling through a bunch of filler here. LGBTQ rep and just an all around fun time.

Trigger Warning for Terminal Illness
Trigger Warning for Rape

The story is a bit sad but not devoid of hope. Out of everything I've read it reminded me most of A Kiss In Time by Alex Flinn.

Thank you to Macmillan-Tor/Forge and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC!

A Spindle Splintered is a breath of fresh air of a fairy retelling of Sleeping Beauty. Instead of trying to evade the fact that most fairy tales are completely chauvinistic, A Spindle Splintered, embraces this truth and seeks to destroy it on what is a lighthearted adventure sprinkled with darker themes, including terminal illnesses and what it means for women to not have any choices. Like most of author Alix E. Harrow’s novels, A Spindle Splintered is filled with the author’s trademark beautiful prose and her ability to immediately suck you into the world. I really loved how Harrow turns the fairy tale tropes on its head, the disability representation, and the feminist goals of the novel. However, I found that a few things in this short novel could have been executed better in order to better push the feminist narrative.

“I’ve never thought about the future. I never had one.”

What I loved the most about A Spindle Splintered was the disability representation. Main character and narrator Zinnia has a genetic disorder that is terminal. Author Harrow does an amazing job of portraying not only Zinnia’s headspace while dealing with the inevitability of her own mortality, but also the people with whom she interacts and how they cope with her inevitable death. Harrow flawlessly shows the disconnect between Zinnia’s priorities and that of her peers, who are concerned with partying and other shallow ventures, as they have all the time in the world to get their lives together. Her parents’ inability to deal with their daughter’s impending death, who spend their time helplessly searching for cures that don’t exist and joining support groups is also poignantly realistic. 

“I wanted to save us all from our stories, but I should have known better than anybody: there are worse endings than sleeping for a hundred years.”

I was really happily surprised at how accurate this portrayal of a disability and the grief that comes with it was, with time being measured in medicine doses, doctor appointments, x-rays, and the clock running out for Zinnia. I honestly think this is one of the best and most realistic representations of disabilities I have ever read in a novel. [spoiler]I was concerned that Zinnia’s disability might be magically cured due to the fantastical nature of A Spindle Splintered, which is one of my least favorite things to see in entertainment (implying that the character is not a worthy protagonist if they have a disability), but Harrow thankfully does not take this easy way out for Zinnia. While it is implied that Zinnia gets a temporary reprieve, a resetting of the clock, she does not get an outright cure, and will have to travel the multiverses to find a cure, and focus on living, and fighting for herself.[/spoiler]

“‘I hope you find your happily-ever-after, or whatever.

‘Already did,’ I say…’I’m just looking for a better once-upon-a-time.’”

My other favorite part of A Spindle Splintered was the different take on the evil enchantress of The Sleeping Beauty fairy tale. Both myself and Zinnia expected to encounter a Maleficent type sorceress, but get something else entirely. Zinnia is similarly surprised by the reasons behind Princess Primrose’s, The Sleeping Beauty of this novel, curse and what it means for both of their futures. I think this part involving the “wicked” fairy is another standout of the novel and it subverts the fairy tale trope with aplomb.

“But it’s difficult to disappear a princess. There tends to be wars and hunts and stories that end with witches dancing in hot iron shoes.”

Unfortunately, I felt that other parts of A Spindle Splintered did not execute its feminist agenda quite as well. Mainly, I was less than thrilled with the character of Princess Primrose altogether. I felt the character had very little development and personality. Instead, Primrose felt more like a bystander in her own story, which does in fact, make sense in a novel that seeks to show the lack of agency of women in fairy tales, but I found it a disappointing take. To me, Primrose felt like a plot device to push main character Zinnia to realize the many choices she has been blessed with in comparison to this doomed princess, if she only reaches out to take advantage of them. It left a bad taste in my mouth that Primrose was used essentially as a juxtaposition for Zinnia in a novel that seeks to not only show everything wrong with gender roles in fairy tales, but also to throw them out entirely. So it’s just sad that Primrose falls prey to the very same tropes that she is supposed to triumph over, and is just such a flat character, who only follows the lead of others. Primrose really only exists through what Zinnia tells us of her, never having her own scenes or acting on her own, which undermines the entire message of A Spindle Splintered.

It doesn’t help that the one thing Primrose decides for herself is [spoiler]an insta-love romance with Zinnia’s best friend, Charm. I felt that their instant attraction, which Zinnia literally tells us is only a result of their fairy tale setting, therefore checking off the romance box of every similar fairy tale, also undercut the theme of choice that the novel so desperately pushes. Yes, Primrose chooses to reject the Prince, whom she doesn’t love and was forced to marry without getting to know, but the fact that she doesn’t take her time and get to know Charm either, seemed in direct opposition to A Spindle Splintered’s main goal, which is to show women rejecting the harmful fairy tale narrative that was set out for them. How is Primrose falling for the first stranger she lays on who is not the Prince, any different from her falling for the stranger that kisses her when she’s under a cursed sleep? I believe it would have been more powerful for Primrose to take her time and to get to know Charm or other potential romantic partners before falling for them and choosing to enter a relationship.[/spoiler] That would have been more a modern, feminist take on romance, which I felt was the entire purpose of the novel. 

Despite failing to really overthrow all of the tropes it wishes to, A Spindle Splintered is still a very fun, lighthearted novel, which I even read in one sitting. I think A Spindle Splintered  was on the right track to be an entirely feminist take on fairy tales, but it simply could have done some very important things better. Perhaps this lack of development in characters other than Zinnia and follow through of its themes, is due in part to the shortness of the novel, which is a mere 128 page.  Knowing what a talented author Alix E. Harrow is, after reading The Once and Future Witches, I honestly wish she had attempted a darker, more serious take on overthrowing misogynist fairy tales, instead of such a tongue-in-cheek, brief one. I would love to read a longer work with the same feminist goals and more developed characters by the same author. If you love fairy tale retellings and feminism, and are looking for an entertaining read with a happy ending, look no further than A Spindle Splintered.

This modern retelling of a classic fairy tale with delight you with its fantastical multiple universes and tug at your heartstrings all at once.

3.5 stars. This novella is an interesting take on Sleeping Beauty. Zinnia has always been the girl with the terminal illness, not expected to live past 21. So her best friend is determined to make her 21st birthday extra special, including a Sleeping Beauty-themed party. When Zinnia pricks her finger on an actual spindle, she falls into another world where she encounters a beautiful young princess who needs her help.

Harrow has obviously done a lot of research on fairy tales. I learned a lot about the Sleeping Beauty story that I never knew, some of it quite disturbing. Zinnia narrates in first person, and her voice is fresh and funny, as she takes her 21st-century America sensibility (and cell phone) into a fairy tale land with witches and magical curses.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for the ARC to review. All opinions are my own.

I was given access to an ARC through Netgalley from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars

In the interest of full disclosure - I was unaware that this book was a novella when I started reading it. That is perhaps the only bad thing that I can say. I wish the book had been longer.

I loved Harrow's writing and the world she built, including the twists and turns from the many different versions of the fairy tale. I love the fact that she incorporated so many different stories and opened up the Sleeping Beauty universe to find ways to include them all. I love that the story did not focus on true love, but rather agency and choice in a story that, traditionally, has none.

This was the first book I've read by Alix E. Harrow, and my only complaint is that I wish it were longer. But that doesn't mean that it was lacking. I was still very much interested in Zinnia's adventures and her battle in her own sleeping beauty-esque story. Definitely going to put more of her books to the top of my TBR list.