Mina is sixteen years old, and her father is a magician who can create living creatures out of snow. Her father has even operated on her and given her a heart of glass. Even though she thinks she cannot love, she wants to win the king’s heart in order to become queen. In order to do that, she must become the stepmother of Lynet, a girl made of snow.
Fifteen-year-old Lynet is the spitting image of her late mother, which she finds out is because a magician created her using snow and blood in order to be a carbon copy of her mother. Lynet would rather be like her fierce stepmother Mina, and befriends a surgeon named Nadia rather than staying a childish princess forever. Her father would give the southern kingdom to her when she grows up instead of to his wife Mina, and this endangers Mina’s place as royalty. All Lynet wants to do is regain the approval of her only mother figure, but society is forcing them to be enemies of each other.
I didn’t know that this book was supposed to be a retelling of Snow White when I first read it, and instead assumed that Mina and Lynet were supposed to be the two main characters who would fall in love eventually. I didn’t even look at any of the summaries of the novel but instead jumped right in. This confused me for awhile as I felt as if I was on two different timelines, which I was. However, as I read more of the story, I loved how everything just came together and I eventually realized that it was a retelling.
I loved how there were so many twists and turns in the plot of this novel. Mina didn’t directly start hating Lynet, but instead started off wanting to satisfy her father, and eventually only holding a grudge against her when she saw that she was in the way of her throne. I also enjoyed seeing the deterioration of Mina’s father throughout the novel, emphasizing the point of magic comes with a price.
My favorite part of the story was definitely both Mina and Lynet figuring out what truly makes a person human. Both of them felt as if they were “less than” because of them not being made of flesh, and had to learn to accept themselves and their powers.
My only complaint would be that the story was a bit slow and confusing for me at the start, but this quickly changed to me loving every second of it.
I would recommend this story to anyone looking for a double POV fantasy story, a retelling of Snow White, or a good story in general.
Overall Rating: 4/5
This sounds really good! Great review!
Have you read The Forest of a Thousand Lanterns? It’s a Snow White retelling as well 😊 I’ll have to check this one out, being made of snow and glass is a very interesting premise!
I haven’t, but I might consider it now! Thanks for the recommendation!