From Jennifer Donnelly, author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller Stepsister, comes a fairytale retelling that'll forever change the way you think about strength, power, and the real meaning of "happily ever after."
Once upon a time, a girl named Sophie rode into the forest with the queen's huntsman. Her lips were the color of ripe cherries, her skin as soft as new-fallen snow, her hair as dark as midnight. When they stopped to rest, the huntsman took out his knife . . . and took Sophie's heart.
It shouldn't have come as a surprise. Sophie had heard the rumors, the whispers. They said she was too kind and foolish to rule -- a waste of a princess. A disaster of a future queen. And Sophie believed them. She believed everything she'd heard about herself, the poisonous words people use to keep girls like Sophie from becoming too powerful, too strong . . .
With the help of seven mysterious strangers, Sophie manages to survive. But when she realizes that the jealous queen might not be to blame, Sophie must find the courage to face an even more terrifying enemy, proving that even the darkest magic can't extinguish the fire burning inside every girl, and that kindness is the ultimate form of strength.
I'm always so in awe of this kind of retelling. How do authors take a (let's face it, fairly thin) fairy tale and make a whole novel, with a convincing world and characters?
If that author is Jennifer Donnelly, the answer is; pretty damn brilliantly.
Stepsister was already amazing, showing one of the 'Ugly' Stepsisters take things into her own hands after Ella leaves with the prince. Poisoned shares its Grimm roots and the theme of girls taking responsibility for themselves; it shares the same lyrical language and fantastic underpinnings. People eat bratwurst and go to market and wear corsets in Jennifer's world, but they might also live with a six foot tall spider or ride around on trolls.
The most important theme, though, is that we should stop listening to the voice that says I can't. Sophie meets people who tear her down and people who build her up, and she teaches herself to stop listening to the former and pay more attention to the latter. A lot of reviews are calling this feminist, and I agree that it is, but I think men and boys can benefit from it just as much. Everyone needs to be reminded not to listen to that voice, after all.
The only part that made me shake my head ... and with the content of this book, that's saying something ... is that the men of the Hollow proclaim to already love Sophie like a daughter after she's been with them for approximately two weeks, and spent twelve days of that unconscious. I could believe it if they'd spent more time interacting with her, but it felt very fast. At least for the rest of her allies she was actually awake and talking to them.
It's a very tiny niggle, though, in a story that I absolutely adored. The book will get a place of honour beside Stepsister and I'll be watching closely for the following books she hinted at towards the end there!
Poisoned publishes on the 20th October 2020.
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