First of all, this is a really quick read. I started it last night. I finished it last night. I stayed up later than I usually do, though, and so I’m a bit tired today.

I wish I could say it was one of those books that’s worth staying up late. It’s not. It’s not a bad book; it’s just that it’s not Gail Carson’s Levine’s best.

It is an interesting premise, though. Take Snow White, set it in Ayortha (from Ella Enchanted), and give it a slight spin. I liked the story well enough: Aza (the Snow White character) is an innkeeper’s daughter (though adopted), she becomes a lady-in-waiting for the new queen (by accident and, um, persuasion), and ends up in prison and then exile. There are the dwarfs (gnomes, actually) and the poisoned apple, the prince, the happily ever after.

The spin though (spoilers ahead), was definitely unique: make the mirror evil. The queen is as much a victim here as Aza. But the mirror was selfish and evil, and plotted to get the people he was given to killed. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. It just wasn’t developed enough. When Aza finally encountered the mirror, it came out of left field. What? The mirror was evil? Huh? And it was given by the fairy Lucinda? Why? Huh? (Lucinda didn’t really even need to be brought into the story; she was only there by inference.)

Which leads me to other problems. While I liked the “moral” (accept the way you look, stop trying to look like everyone else, you’re unique and beautiful the way you are) of the story, I felt that Levine was a bit heavy-handed with it. Okay, we get it. Aza’s not really an oaf. The prince always loved her for who she was. She was her own worst critic. Etc.

Actually, I thought that Levine short-changed the prince. I didn’t like or dislike him at all. He was really a non-entity in the story . When I was talking to M about it this morning (she read the book first), I asked how she liked the prince. “Well,” she said, “I liked his dog.” I like that Levine has strong female characters who figure out things for themselves. But happily-ever-after endings don’t work if there’s not any real buildup to it.

One final note: I’d be curious to see what a reader does with the book-on-CD for this one. Much of it was “sung” (there are quite a few song poems and the characters don’t speak so much as sing). M’s biggest complaint was being bugged by the lack of tunes to put the songs to. It’d be interesting to see what a professional could do with it.