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We are part of a group of librarian friends who have had an ongoing book club running for the last several years. Each “season” (we’re nerds) we pick a theme and each of us chooses a book within that theme for us all to read. Re-visiting some of our past themes, we’re once again pulling random words from and finding a book that matches the prompts. For this blog, we will post a joint review of each book we read for book club. We’ll also post the next book coming up in book club. So feel free to read along with us or use our book selections and questions in your own book club!
Book: “Girls Made of Snow and Glass” by Melissa Bashardoust
Publishing Info: Flatiron Books, September 2017
Where Did We Get This Book: The library!
Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound
Prompt Words: Snow, Spell
Book Description: Sixteen-year-old Mina is motherless, her magician father is vicious, and her silent heart has never beat with love for anyone—has never beat at all, in fact, but she’d always thought that fact normal. She never guessed that her father cut out her heart and replaced it with one of glass. When she moves to Whitespring Castle and sees its king for the first time, Mina forms a plan: win the king’s heart with her beauty, become queen, and finally know love. The only catch is that she’ll have to become a stepmother.
Fifteen-year-old Lynet looks just like her late mother, and one day she discovers why: a magician created her out of snow in the dead queen’s image, at her father’s order. But despite being the dead queen made flesh, Lynet would rather be like her fierce and regal stepmother, Mina. She gets her wish when her father makes Lynet queen of the southern territories, displacing Mina. Now Mina is starting to look at Lynet with something like hatred, and Lynet must decide what to do—and who to be—to win back the only mother she’s ever known…or else defeat her once and for all.
Entwining the stories of both Lynet and Mina in the past and present, “Girls Made of Snow and Glass” traces the relationship of two young women doomed to be rivals from the start. Only one can win all, while the other must lose everything—unless both can find a way to reshape themselves and their story.
Kate’s Thoughts
I remember this book crossing my path back when it came out, and while the idea of a “Snow White” reimagining definitely piqued my interest I ultimately never picked it up. Because of this I cackled a bit when it was picked for book club because apparently it was my fate to eventually read this book. I have enjoyed a fair amount of “Snow White” retellings if done well, and I liked the sound of this one because it sounded like it was going to have a bit more insight into the Queen’s motivations. Unfortunately it didn’t quite live up to the expectations I had for it.
I did enjoy the way that Bashardoust approached the relationship between Lynet (our Snow White) and Mina (our evil queen/stepmother). It’s not so often that a reimagining of this story actually tries to create a somewhat positive relationship, or at least the potential for one, between these two characters, and by doing so and making Lynet and Mina more victims of their circumstances (put in place by their fathers) and less mortal enemies, though there is certainly conflict there. It was a unique way to tackle a reimagining, and this was the strongest aspect of the book for me.
But on the other hand, there was a lot of not so complex and somewhat fraught storytelling as we saw Lynet and Mina go on their paths in the narrative. I felt like we didn’t really get a good sense of their relationships with the other characters, even those that would be pretty important, and I felt like the magical systems and their magical afflictions (Mina being made of glass and Lynet being made of snow) were very surface level without much substance. Are they metaphors that could be interesting, sure, but when they are just there to be obvious metaphors it isn’t as compelling as it could be.
So there was a lot of potential and some solid character beats, but overall “Girls Made of Snow and Glass” was pretty middle of the road.
Serena’s Thoughts
On paper, this book should have been right up my alley. And it did work in some ways, just not in all the ways that I wanted. Its biggest positive is the creative take it offers on the “Snow White” tale. This included an elaborate (if a bit confused and badly defined) magic system, a dual perspective shared between the Queen and the Snow White character, and a refocus of the primary relationship away from the romances and more fully on this mother/daughter relationship.
This last part, especially, was particularly well done. It’s rare that you see the major emotional stakes of a YA fantasy story focused on the relationship between two women, especially when one is in a mother/stepmother role. On the other hand, this left the romances feeling very underwhelming. It also felt weighted toward Mina’s relationship, leaving the sapphic love story between Lynet and her love interest feeling fairly weak.
My major problem came down to the writing. It wasn’t bad, by any means. But it was also incredibly dry and simple. There wasn’t much of a voice given to either character, and the author was quick to fall into the trap of telling the readers exactly how they should interpret any given scene. While the themes of beauty, independence, and feminine rage were interesting, none of them were presented or surfaced in anything resembling a subtle way.
So, ultimately, I didn’t dislike this book, but I also had hoped to enjoy it much more than I did. I really love fairytale retellings, but this felt very much “of its time,” a time when YA fantasy especially was given to underestimating its readers and relying on overly simplistic storytelling techniques.
Kate’s Rating 6 : I definitely appreciated the deconstruction of the Snow White and Evil Queen relationship in this book, but I felt like the storytelling wasn’t as focused as I would have liked it to be.
Serena’s Rating 7: While I appreciated the focus on the relationship between Mina and Lynet, the storytelling itself left much to be desired.
Book Club Questions
- This is a Snow White retelling that jumps through timelines and through perspectives of both the Snow White character and the Evil Queen character. Were you able to follow it as it jumped between times and perspectives?
- What did you think of the father/daughter relationships in this story?
- What were your thoughts on the relationship between Lynet and Mina? Was it surprising you to you that Bashardoust went in this direction?
- What were your thoughts on Felix? How did he compare to other Huntsmen portrayals?
- What did you think of the way the concepts of snow and glass were used as metaphors in this novel? Did it work for you? Why or why not?
- Did you have any opinions on the magical systems in this book? Did they seem consistent, and did they make sense?
- How did you feel about the ending? Was it satisfying?
Reader’s Advisory
“Girls Made of Snow and Glass” is included on the Goodreads lists 2017 YA Fairy Tale Retellings and YA Fantasy with Major Sapphic Girls.
Next Book Club Pick: “Space Cat” by Nnedi Okorafor
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