Oct 14

Oct 14 A Spindle Splintered (Fractured Fables, #1)

Author: Alix E. Harrow
Publisher: Tor.com
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

Cover Description

It's Zinnia Gray's twenty-first birthday, which is extra-special because it's the last birthday she'll ever have. When she was young, an industrial accident left Zinnia with a rare condition. Not much is known about her illness, just that no one has lived past twenty-one.

Her best friend Charm is intent on making Zinnia's last birthday special with a full sleeping beauty experience, complete with a tower and a spinning wheel. But when Zinnia pricks her finger, something strange and unexpected happens, and she finds herself falling through worlds, with another sleeping beauty, just as desperate to escape her fate.

TL;DR Review

A Spindle Splintered is a really fun, really creative quick read. It’s not quite a retelling, but people who love retellings will love this. I’m excited to read more of these Fractured Fables!

For you if: You like fairy tales, queer fantasy, and/or retellings!

Full Review

After really liking The Ten Thousand Doors of January and LOVING The Once and Future Witches, Alix E. Harrow has become an auto-read author for me. I love her creativity and storyteller voice. So of course I preordered A Spindle Splintered, the first novella in her new Fractured Fables series. And it did NOT disappoint!

This isn’t really a Sleeping Beauty retelling, as you might expect; it’s more of a new story about the Sleeping Beauty story. The main character is a 21-year-old terminally ill girl named Zinnia who’s been obsessed with Sleeping Beauty her whole life. At the birthday party her best friend threw her, something ~unexpected~ happens, and she finds herself quite literally in the story itself — but it’s not exactly what she’d have imagined.

This book was just really fun, and I read all 125 pages in one sitting. Such a fun adventure, a quick dip into another world. Part of the joy in reading it lies in how aware of itself the story is (I laughed when she was like “wait, how do I still have cell phone service?? ahh well whatever I guess”), which keeps it from feeling cheesy and tips it over to creative and smart. Harrow has given us a new fable about hope and choice and forging our own path.

I can’t wait to read more of these novellas!