New Snow, Same Story: "Snow in Summer" by Jane Yolen

Retelling fairy tales is a tricky business--mainly because they have already been retold so many times in so many ways. Take a look at the recent trend of "retold fairy-tale" movies: Hansel and Gretel, Red Riding Hood, and Jack the Giant Killer, just to name a few.

However, Jane Yolen's newest book Snow in Summer: Fairest of Them All ends pretty much the same way that the original version does. And therein lies the problem with all re-tellings: We already know how the story ends. Snow White will emerge from her sleep, the prince will be waiting, the seven supporting characters will rejoice, and all will be well.

Snow in Summer, so named by her flower-loving mother (spoiler: Mom dies,) is a likable but ultimately passive protagonist. She has better survival skills than her predecessor and takes an active part in the ultimate defeat of her enemy, her Wicked  Stepmother, but the song mostly remains the same all the way through: Snow in Summer (Summer to her loved ones, Snow to her stepmother) loses her mother at age seven, and her father falls into a state of permanent mourning that causes him to neglect his daughter. Her kindly Cousin Nancy looks after her, and try as she might to rouse Snow's father from his grief, she and Summer are unsuccessful. Then one day a beautiful Woman of Mystery bewitches Summer's father and he decides to marry her.

Thanks to switching narratives, we get to hear the Wicked Stepmother's story--she gave seven years of her life to a warlock she calls "the Master" in exchange for his teaching her all the magic skills he knew. She ultimately rebelled by stealing the spells he didn't want her to know and killing him. She has married Summer's father because he owns the last bit of land that needs to be sold to make way for a new railroad. The stepmother plans to make his death look accidental, inherit the land, and sell it herself.

"Stepmama" wants to make Summer her apprentice the same way she was the Master's, and attempts to subdue Summer's spirit into  obedience through emotional and physical abuse. She keeps Summer's father subdued with strong potions so he can't interfere, but Cousin Nancy notices and intervenes more than once on Summer's behalf. When the stepmother realizes that Summer shows no willingness to learn magic, nor can she be forced, the story takes a much more traditional turn as the stepmother plots Summer's death.

Props must go to Yolen for giving us a Wicked Stepmother with more depth and motivation than one-dimensional evil jealousy. She is not jealous of Snow in Summer's beauty (and of course, Snow in Summer is one of those pure, selfless souls who Doesn't Know She's Beautiful.) but rather wants her as an ally. She treats her cruelly because it was how she was taught, and she insists that she is not unkind because she knows how to kill painlessly. At her core, though, she has the same lust for power and control as any fairytale villainess.

The heroine Snow in Summer is not saintly (and doesn't sing to animals, thank God) and Yolen makes her human, giving her believable doubts, uncertainties and fears about her father's enchantment, as well as the amount of control Stepmama exerts over both their lives. She is not a worldly child, being raised in a small West Virginia town in the 1920s in a time when most girls her age got married at fourteen. She is spirited and loyal, and knows enough about the woods to survive long enough to meet the seven "dwarves," who are actually German immigrants in this re-imagining.

The end of the book feels like the weakest part. There is no romance in the story between Summer and her potential "Prince Charming." The character himself is not introduced until the last part of the story, and we know very little about him. But you can probably guess how he and Summer end up. Everything is wrapped up in a neat little ending, which I won't spoil for you, but is very predictable.

Aside from the well-trodden theme of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, the story is marvelously written. The characters are very interesting, each with their own distinct voice. The West Virginia setting is beautifully described without being overly prosaic. There is an appropriate amount of mystery and tension in the right places as well, keeping the reader intrigued even when they already know the story....which is, ultimately, how a retold story measures success.

Put Your Pants On!: "Sisterhood Everlasting" by Ann Brashares

Still not done with Diviners, so I thought I'd post something completely different.


Just so we're clear, I loved the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series. Books 1 through 4 were quite pleasing to me. But then came the (long-awaited? Somewhat anticipated? Completely out of the blue?) epilogue novel, Sisterhood Everlasting. Having a few questions I wanted answers to about the fate of the Pantsed Four, I dove right in.

 I found it to be an outright travesty of an "epilogue." The four characters I had grown so fond of and learned so much about had been altered in ways that barely made sense at all.

 Bridget went from free-spirited to manically obsessed with moving all over California ALL THE DAMN TIME, and she was all "Whoopsie-daisy, my birth control expired, but no big deal, right?" when she should have been considerably more concerned that, oh, I don't know, IT MEANT SHE WAS PROBABLY PREGNANT. Which, naturally, she was! And even though she wants to end it right away, the nurse is all "Wait and see if you change your mind!" Which she does. And after becoming a babysitter to Tibby's surprise daughter, she realizes that BABIES ARE AWESOME and of course she wants one! What kind of woman wouldn't want a child, especially a woman as clearly troubled and unstable as Bridget?!

Uch, Lena. What HAPPENED to you? Rather than being the more confident, less inhibited woman she was in Forever in Blue, she's regressed to the point of being worse than her introverted Book One self. She settles for living the most boring life possible as an antisocial art teacher who denies herself the chance of living a happy life with Kostos time and time again. They should have gotten together long before now, but  didn't, because SHE CHICKENED OUT. Seriously, she cancelled a reunion with him years back because just the anticipation of the event made her physically sick. Girl, get yourself some therapy. Please.

And so, it seems that "Get back together with Kostos" is doomed to be the repeating storyline for Lena Kaligaris. Who cares if she never becomes a famous artist? Who cares if she alienates her only sister and still can't forgive her for losing the Pants all those years ago? The most important issue is WILL SHE AND KOSTOS EVER GET TOGETHER FOR GOOD?! Because the man you met at sixteen will end up being the man you marry! Why else would Bridget and Tibby still be with their teenage boyfriends? (Carmen didn't get a boyfriend until Girls in Pants, and so this means she will never find true love. Apparently.)

Carmen has sold out and become a materially-obsessed TV star who's marrying a jerk of a guy she doesn't really love. She throws herself into planning a wedding after what happens to Tibby because it beats being sad all the time. Of course, after her new iPhone refuses to work on a train to an important audition, she ends up becoming a babysitter for a man and his two young children for the evening. And by the time they get to the station, voila! The transformation is complete, and she is "human" again. Career-making role be damned! iPhone be damned! Wedding be damned! She has been reborn as as Real Person!

Tibby, most unfortunately, drowns during a swim in Greece, but not before she and Brian have a secret love child in Australia that she DIDN'T EVEN TELL HER PARENTS ABOUT. Really, it comes as a surprise to EVERYONE that Tibby has a kid. And she's managed to write scads of  posthumous letters to each of her friends telling them what they should do with their lives, but she NEVER EXPLAINS WHY SHE KEPT HER PREGNANCY AND SUBSEQUENT LIFE-THREATENING ILLNESS A SECRET. You owed them that much information after two years! They spent MONTHS believing you'd committed SUICIDE!

Also, she bought a beautiful farm in Pennsylvania and furnished three little renovated barns on it for Carmen, Lena and Bridget. That's lovely, Tibster, but how in holy fuck did you find the time and money to do all this? And what was the plan if you had lived long enough for everyone to reunite here? Did you think they'd all just pack up their lives and move out to the Farm of the Sisterhood forever and ever? What, this is another to-remain-unsolved mystery? Fuck it. I hate this storyline.

All capital-letter-inducing rants aside, it isn't a badly written book. Ann Brashares is a talented writer who writes with genuine emotion and knows her characters inside and out. It just seems that she should have left well enough alone with these particular four.