Sometimes, you just want something that is unabashedly fun. This book delivers on that. It is lightening fast, with the characters moving at a literal run almost the entire time. The characters are fast talking, dropping jokes and cultural references at Gilmore Girls speeds. If you want a fast, light, fractured fairy tale, this will be perfect for you.

What an unexpected treat, to see Harrow continuing her fractured fairytale spider-verse novella-world! I appreciated the spin on the evil queen and the re-envisioning of the politics (both gender and literal) there -- but this truly flashed by in a way that made me long for a deeper engagement with the story and the ideas Harrow is playing with. There are times when the novella form really works and times where I wish it wasn't so constraining and this ended up being one of the latter. It's a good problem to have, though, you know?

Alix E. Harrow is one of my favorite authors currently publishing. She has such a way of tricking me into feeling things that I would normally avoid - coating it all in a layer of good-natured (never mean-spirited) snark to break through my defenses, right to the gooey center of my hidden heart. HOW DARE.

This is such an excellent retelling, full of twists and turns, a little horror, so much feminist agency, love. I cried. I’m so sad it’s over, and so glad she wrote it for all of us.

This second novella in Harrow’s Fractured Fables series is the perfect follow up to A Spindle Splintered. With a better understanding of travel through the multiverse and the role of stories, hilarious Zinnia undergoes a satisfying character arc for such a short book, and helps a villain with no name rewrite the ending to her story. I like the way this book reads like so much more than what’s written on the page; it represents the narrative of our lives and world, and the agency to change what is written for us.

An enchanting, dark, funny, and worthy sequel. The sarcasm and voice is fantastic, and the character development for Zinnia is top notch. I didn't anticipate the massive time jump, but it worked, and I loved getting to see all the characters again. It managed to be even more meta than the first one, which was a delight.

Another great Zinnia Gray novella, this time unpacking the Evil Queen narrative in fairytales and the inherent balance of power in storytelling.

This was a solid followup to A Spindle Splintered. I loved that it followed a different fairytale completely. Harrow gets into some meta-storytelling here that I am a complete sucker for. It was even more gay. Just all very very good things. I read it in a single sitting and my only complaint is that I wish there was more of it. (Which is not to say that it felt incomplete! In fact, Harrow is one of only a few authors who I believe knows when a story is a novella vs when it is a novel. This is the perfect length for what it is, my wanting more is my own greed.) Anyway, A+, highly recommend, will read anything this woman writes.

Oh my goodness! Zinnia Gray who has astonishingly smartest and darkest sense of humor, brilliantly sarcastic, sappy narrator is one of the greatest heroines the author has created: Yes, she’s spent the last five years of her life diving through every iterat
Sleeping Beauty, chasing the echoes of her own shitty narrative through tin
space and making it a little less shitty, like a cross between Doctor Who and
editor. Rescuing princesses from space colonies and castles and caves; blessing babies; getting drunk with at least twenty good fairies,
making out with every member of the royal family are just occupational hazards she’s been dealing for long!

Is it fair for her dedicating her life to give each character a happily ever after when she just gets bored, exhausted, lost: mostly having no clue where she is, what she is doing, what her life purpose is?

Then she finds out one of the villanelles also revolts against her doomed destiny. The evil queen of Snow White learns the end of the story and she’s so determined to change her future. Could Zinnia help Evil Queen fulfill her destiny even though she cannot move a finger to do some slightest changes about her own derailing life story?

Well: the characterization, witty tone, smart plot line, twisted retelling idea of the fairytale lured me! I loved the first book and this one also earned my four magical stars!

The series is getting much better at each story! I’m looking forward to read the third one!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan/Tor/ Forge for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.