A Mirror Mended is the continuation of the Fractured Fables series. Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. Both books are available now.

A Mirror Mended continues the story started in A Spindle Splintered, with Zinnia traveling into various versions of the Sleeping Beauty tale to save the princess from her own story. It’s obvious that Zinnia is creating as many happy endings as possible because she feels she has no control over her own fate. She knows that her illness will catch up to her (sooner rather than later) and she will die. As far as avoidance techniques go, it’s a pretty creative one. It’s also alienated her from her best friend, Charm.

After one night of a particularly zesty victory celebration, Zinnia finds herself traveling into another fairytale- except for the first time ever, it’s not another version of Sleeping Beauty. Instead, she comes face to face with the Evil Queen from Snow White.

I’ve never been a big fan of Snow White (especially the Disney version) and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing it dumped on its head. Since Zinnia meets the Evil Queen first instead of Snow White, she’s treated to an opposing view of what really happens in the story. Doubly interesting is that this villain knows she’s the bad guy and even knows her own fate (which is really rather grisly).

Just like Zinnia, Eva (short for “Evil Queen”) is looking for a way to escape her story. The book focuses mainly on their changing relationship and how they learn from each other. Now, before you think “boring” and write the book off- there’s also a fair amount of fairy tale shenanigans, including battles, magical witches, and romance. At the end of the day, though, the relationships and character growth were what kept me interested.

I was a little concerned at first because Charm is in very little of this book. I was worried that it wouldn’t give Zinnia the chance to continue to grow as a character without having someone who understood the entire situation. Fortunately, Eva is a quick study and more than made up for the missing Charm (weak pun intended).

Zinnia was in fine form, her snarkiness shining through, but Eva stole the show. Her mix of naivety and condescension made her a blast to read! She was always a force to be reckoned with, and it didn’t go well when people forgot that.

Author Alix E. Harrow packed a ton into such a short book. Every now and again I wished that more time could have been spent on a particular part (especially when a certain character helps raid a castle), but such is the nature of shorter books. I just enjoy Harrow’s writing so much that I’m always eager for more.

Is A Mirror Mended my favorite Alix E. Harrow book? No. But’s it’s well written, added a new facet to the Fractured Fables storyline, and kept me highly entertained.

I really liked the fantasy retelling and it being queer. It’s a fast read and I needed to know how this story would progress. Well done.

A great continuation if the first in the series, in that it allows itself to address and critique the shortcomings of the first. As a whole, it makes me very excited to see what's next. On a meta level, it's doing what the protagonist is: rewriting stories and making them more powerful. While this one wasn't the most phenomenal read, it was better than the last and still very enjoyable. And if this trajectory continues, then this series will become one of the greats.

This felt both like a filler episode and way too rushed. She tried to do a full novel's length of development in 130 pages. But I'll still continue to read this series if it continues.

Videos where I talk about this book -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJLGi33rt1k&t=4s - Mid Month Wrap Up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM5PgM25k44 - Attempting to read 33 books in 31 days

Thank you to Alix E. Harrow, Macmillan-Tor/Forge, Tordotcom, and. Netgalley for an advance reader copy of "A Mirror Mended" for an honest review.

Like 'A Spindle Splintered' before it, I MADLY LOVED this book. I have been on a dedicated path of mad adoration for everything Harrow has written, and this was no different. Her writing remains above bar for the norm of an author still in their earlier years: gorgeous prose, amazing turns of phrase. I'm constantly in awe of her phrasing and the way she pulls together a plot.

This book was a mad delight on its own. I loved the exploration moving from 'princess at the mercy of narrative' in the last book to 'villainesses at the mercy of the narrative' this time. It's such a flip, and dark, delicious dive into the wants, needs, losses, and pigeonholing of those characters as well.

Absolutely loved the next phase of this series! Alix does a wonderful job creating these twisted tales! Can't wait for the next one!

Alix E. Harrow may as well be an auto-buy author for me from now on. A Mirror Mended is the second entry in the Fractured Fables series and is just as delightful to me as its predecessor. We return to the life of Zinnia Gray, who—exhausted with rescuing so many princesses and tipping headlong into burnout—receives a plea for help from the most unlikely of people: Snow White’s Evil Queen.

In addition to the wit and snark I loved about Zinnia from the first novella, she displays deeper emotional complexity as she grapples with her life, her purpose, her family, and most importantly, what to do about the Evil Queen. As always, Harrow’s prose enchants from the get-go. I found myself drawn right back into this multiverse of possibility and completely invested in both the plot and the characters. For those who buy physical books, this one also has gorgeous illustrations and would be a gem on any shelf.

I’m not sure what, if anything, is forthcoming for this series, but I hope we get at least one more novella in the Fractured Fables series because I’m not quite ready to be done with Zinnia and her journey just yet. Highly recommended and likely an all-time favourite series.

Thank you to Tordotcom and NetGalley for an advance reader copy. All opinions are my own.

This felt both like a filler episode and way too rushed. She tried to do a full novel's length of development in 130 pages. But I'll still continue to read this series if it continues

Even better than A Spindle Splintered, I loved A Mirror Mended.

"I would tell you what kind of animal it was, but I have no idea, and looking at it made my brain cramp. So I'll just say it was bad. Like, if a snake fucked a tarantula and their babies died in a tar pit, only to be reanimated by a necromancer who graduated at the absolute bottom of his class."

Darker and more complex, there's a lot more pain and violence in A Mirror Mended. Relationships that were established in A Spindle Splintered are strained, and emotions are running high. While Zinnia is used to travelling through Sleeping Beauty universes, she's not prepared to be pulled into an entirely new fairy tale to save a villain she doesn't want to help.

"You have to make the best of whatever story you were born into, and if your story happens to suck ass, well, maybe you can do some good before you go.
And if that's not enough, if you still want more in your greedy, selfish heart: I recommend you run, and keep running"

I loved that by trying to do good, Zinnia's actions have caused reverberations throughout these fairy tale worlds, in the same way that her constant need to save others has affected her own relationships and life. Living your whole life under a death sentence and finding a possible loophole would cause some emotional damage, and it's very easy to see here.

"Is that what I've been doing, these last five years? Trying to outrun my own ending? Throwing away every chance at happiness just because it was fleeting?"

This duology is a quick but worthwhile read. Containing only two novellas, I wish they were longer or that there were more to come, but I am happy with the closure obtained with A Mirror Mended and would highly recommend the read.

This second installment in the Fractured Fables series finds Zinnia Gray weary of traveling from world to world in her role as the fixer of Sleeping Beauty stories. She is hiding out from yet another celebratory wedding reception and is about to make her exit when she looks into a mirror. Instead of her own reflection, she sees a striking woman, older and far less pretty than most sleeping beauties. Zinnia raises her fingers to the glass and finds herself pulled through the mirror.

It turns out that the woman is the evil queen in a Snow White story. She has seen how her story will end and wants out, so she asks Zinnia to explain how she travels from world to world. Understandably, Zinnia is not inclined to set an evil queen loose in the multiverse. But when the pair go on the run together both of their lives are changed. I read this without having read A Spindle Splintered, and despite it being a sequel I felt like enough was explained for it to stand on its own.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC

Alix E. Harrow's writing is always so engrossing and fast-paced, and A Mirror Mended is no exception. A companion/continuation of A Spindle Splintered, this book is perfect for fans of Harrow's postmodern narrative style and fairy tale retellings. Harrow refreshes classic tales by questioning whose stories get told and how we tell them. Although this novella is short, it packs a punch, and I was left thinking about this book for a long time after finishing. I can't recommend this or any of Harrow's writing enough--she's truly one of the best literary fiction/fantasy authors writing today.

I'm enjoying this series of fairy tale retelling by Alix E Harrow. I'm a fan of her books so I was excited to have the opportunity to read the next book. It was a fun read. Thank you for the opportunity!

It has been an exciting five years for our dimension traveling heroine, Zinnia Gray. We have moved past the traditional simple sleeping beauty type stories and into just about every variation on theme that can be imagined. Every country, every type of world and even some off world, Zinnia has stepped in and did her best to "help" the titular princess. She has burned fifty spindles. "Just when Zinnia's beginning to think she can't handle one more princess, she glances into a mirror and sees another face looking back at her: the shockingly gorgeous face of evil, asking for her help."

Now, what fairy tale do we know of that has a gorgeous face of evil staring into a mirror?

It is none other than the worst of evil stepmothers, the poisoner of many apples, The Evil Queen. And she needs help. Although at the time of jumping through the mirror, Zinnia did not know that. Even the worst of the worst might have a redeeming quality buried deep inside them, and they need a better ending than to be put in hot metal shoes, or crumble and wither to dust. Or, if you take the Disney version, driven off of a cliff. Either way, The Evil Queen's future is one of horror, and she wants a new ending.

“You have to make the best of whatever story you were born into, and if your story happens to suck ass, well, maybe you can do some good before you go.”

I have often said that Alix E. Harrow cannot write a bad thing. For me, as a reader, her words and stories indeed resonate. When I hear that she will have a new release, I look forward to it for months. A Mirror Mended is no different. I highly enjoyed this story, with a few caveats. Like the first in this series, Zinnia is snarky and likable. I get her humor; maybe it is because I, too, have quite the sardonic tongue. A Mirror Mended is a story that does not take itself too seriously. How could it? Fairy tales, while important culturally, are often a bit tongue and cheek. I am glad that Harrow moved on to another fairy tale just as dark as Sleeping Beauties. Disney sure does enjoy tarting up stories for the masses, especially when the underbelly of the story is figuratively infested with worms.

Harrow is also a master world-builder. Granted, the world of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White were reasonably solid from the original stories, but she takes all those ideas and convincingly twists them. It is one of the things I enjoy about her as an author; she knows how to make the unbelievable into the believable.

“The mirror showed me you, out of all the possible people in all the universes,' It sounds almost like an apology. 'Why?'
'Well, what were you doing at the time?'
'I was looking into the mirror, obviously. Wishing for a way out.'
'Well, so was I. As it happens.”

The caveats as mentioned above are that Zinnia's quippyness, her snark, came off less as a popping soap bubble of humor and more like a defense mechanism, and given the context of the story, it didn't quite fit right for me as a reader. This might be entirely on me and what I see in Zinnia as a character, but often her dialog seemed too forced. And in a story this short, something like that can quickly drive out a reader, as it did with me.

Even with this sidenote, this is a hell of a good story. Her record for writing killer novels and short stories continues. I highly recommend this as a nice little jaunt into fairy tales. Make sure you read the first novel, A Spindle Splintered, first so you can get all the references and enjoy Harrow's mastery.

zinnia gray has spent the last five years helping other sleeping beauties rewrite their endings while trying to escape her own. she’s tired of endless iterations of her story, but she isn’t ready to stop running. in the aftermath of saving yet another damsel, she looks in the mirror and finds a stranger’s face looking back at her: the evil queen, desperate to rewrite her own ending.

and suddenly zinnia is in a new story, with a new companion whose story parallels her own in unexpected ways.

a mirror mended is just as full of pop culture references and banter as a spindle splintered, a fast-paced adventure that explores agency and stories in a fracturing multiverse and crafts a delightful romance perfect for anyone who was maybe slightly too invested in swan queen as a teenager. as usual, harrow’s storytelling is just brilliant—thoughtful and original without sacrificing charm or quirk. (also as usual, i wish this was a full-length novel instead of a novella.)

Witty and thoughtful! Just the sort of multiverse contemplation I enjoy. I’m glad to see this story continued, even though, as the book reminds us, all stories must end.

Disclaimer: I started this novella very late at night expecting to jump in and go. That didn't work so well, and I was lost on more than one occasion. Part of that was my own brain fatigue but part of it is the style — rendering literary and cultural nuance as a multiverse has genuine complexity built in and some of the writing (while fun and beautiful as ever) feels a little vague. Anyway... no matter how fatigued my brain or vaguely complex (or complexly vague) the story, I'll always choose fractured fairytales, multiverses, fantasy novellas, and Alix Harrow. Because they are the best. But if it's been awhile, maybe re-read A Spindle Splintered before you pick this one up. And maybe make sure the clock isn't about to strike midnight on you and your fatigued brain.

After five years of fairytale fixing, Zinnia Gray is tired of rescuing and tired of running. She basically put a bookmark in her own story back home, with the hurtful consequence of leaving her best friend on read. So maybe she's not exactly sorry to find herself yanked through a mirror and into another story, but she's sorry to say she's not entirely sure what to do about this one. Is the evil queen the villain or the victim? And what does it make Zinnia if she helps her?

A Mirror Mended is a remix of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White that tells the story of identity, agency, and relationship with creative dark humor and skill.

I am so disappointed. I wanted to love this book but it just was not good. It was trying too hard. While it was an interesting concept it just wasn't a good execution.

This was such a quick and enjoyable read! I read this entire book in a couple of hours because I just could not put it down. I love how Harrow makes sure to include many different versions of Snow White, making it where you think you know where the story will go until you are surprised! I would highly recommend this to anyone looking for a quick story that does not go down the traditional fairy tale retelling route.

First book that wasn’t a children’s book that I finished all in one day for quite a while!

A lovely sequel with Zinnia Gray. This time no sleeping beauties (unless you count Prim the defector from A Spindle Splintered). There is a lot of great character development in this book. Harrow really knows how to give words double meaning or new meaning in different light.

Thanks to Netgalley and Alix Harrow for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

We are back with Zinnia Gray as she aims to right the woes in the various Sleeping Beauty iterations. I greatly enjoyed the first book and had high hopes for this one unfortunately I felt it fell a little bit flat. Now I will say Alix E. Harrow has a true gift for crafting such a full story in a novella. However I felt this “multiverse of sleeping beauty madness”, if you will, felt a little too overwhelming, while simultaneously being underwhelming and not quite fun. It appears as if the story lost some of the emotional ties that I had to the characters, as I was too busy trying to figure out the who what when where why and how of it all.

Would I still recommend if you liked the first book? Yes. However, they do read differently. I think because the first book felt so refreshed and lively, it ultimately led to potentially too high expectations for the sequel.