The Bibliophile Confessions

The queen shook her head. "I was a fool. I was a fool to despair. I learned my lesson though. After... After that... my relationship with Charming was even better! After that it was perfect. I learned a hard lesson, but maybe I needed to."

"What was the lesson?" asked the mirror softly.

Snow White was silent for a long moment. It felt like a sleepy sort of awareness was waking up in her brain, like a great juggernaut of understanding was slowly rousing itself into motion.

"That it is foolish to despair," she whispered, "that there is always hope."

"Are you sure that you've learnt it?" asked the mirror again. "Are you sure that is what you really believe?"

Snow White said nothing, but continued to stare down at her hands.

"Will you look, but once more Snow White," the mirror asked softly. "Will you look one last time?"



*Copy provided by the author in exchange of an honest review*

This is an amazing take to one of the most famous fairy tales in the whole world. The manner of writing suits the theme of the story very well, although I'm afraid I'm not much familiar to it because I haven't read a lot of historical novels or works that use this kind of writing, so some words really do appear alien to me.

I'm not really a big fan of Snow White and her story, unless we're talking about Ginnifer Goodwin's character in Once Upon A Time, then consider it sold. However, this story opened up a lot of angles on her character, even though it may not seem "canon" to the original story. As much as I did not like Snow White being fragile and too dependent on Charming, I've realized that this was how the author wants the story to go. At least, Snow learned her lesson. Besides, I knew where all that came from. The portrayal of the Evil Queen, Lady Arglist, was really strong. What she did to Snow White was cruel and brutal. Nothing I've ever seen before in any Snow White stories.

I really liked the character of the Mirror. It's completely different compared to the other portrayals. I've never considered it as a major character of the story until I've read this one so I would like to give David Meredith a major round of applause for completely transforming a nonliving thing into an essential character.

Overall, I saw this book as a story of inspiration and finding oneself amidst all the difficulties in life. I really think that the title fits the whole story.