Date of Publication: October 14 2014
Pages: 338
Source: Library
Princess Snow is missing.
Her home planet is filled with violence and corruption at the hands of King Matthias and his wife as they attempt to punish her captors. The king will stop at nothing to get his beloved daughter back—but that’s assuming she wants to return at all.
Essie has grown used to being cold. Temperatures on the planet Thanda are always sub-zero, and she fills her days with coding and repairs for the seven loyal drones that run the local mines.
When a mysterious young man named Dane crash-lands near her home, Essie agrees to help the pilot repair his ship. But soon she realizes that Dane’s arrival was far from accidental, and she’s pulled into the heart of a war she’s risked everything to avoid. With the galaxy’s future—and her own—in jeopardy, Essie must choose who to trust in a fiery fight for survival.
Review:
Stitching Snow is a pretty decent standalone fantasy. I say "standalone fantasy" with a bit of suspicion because fantasies usually require several books of world building and plot building.
Stitching Snow was an impulse choice just because of the cover. I mean, it's a stunning cover. It it simple with pretty details, and the title is very significant to the story. I did not, however, read the synopsis and I went into this book knowing very little about it.
I can say now that it's a nice read, but not exactly my type. Snitching Snow has a good background, good characters, decent action, but where it doesn't suit my tastes is in its lack of detail. If you're looking for a fantasy in a single book, Snitching Snow is perfectly suitable. The characters and plot are remarkably developed considering how short the pages are, and I was quite surprised when I realized just how much had happened in the overall arc by 50 pages; by 100 pages.
The characters were well written. Essie is a character that is easy to like. She is a very human character with a bit of an edge that I appreciated. Essie knows all about sacrifice and she is quite capable. There were some very serious topics associated with Essie's character that were glanced upon, and this disappointed me because these topics were so serious, and were nothing more than plot twists. It's not that the author didn't consider the effects of such events on the characters, but they were not considered to be a big part of the story. For me, I would have enjoyed seeing in depth how these really big topics affected the characters, so I would have liked more elaboration, for character development.
The world building was also quite minimalist. I knew the basics, and that's all you really needed because the author took an intergalactic story and simplified it. I had a general sense of the settings, and some disgust towards the villains, and that was pretty much it. The details did not exist, and the strange part was that the ending of the story was extremely rushed. What should have been the longest part of the story ran out of real estate. It was weird because proportionally, what I believed to be the result of most of the build up, the area around the climax of the story, felt the shortest. This meant that the ending hurt Stitching Snow because it was way too 'easy'. There were side effects, but none of those were mentioned, and there wasn't enough tension built up before the solution.
The other part of my dissatisfaction was that I was waiting for another twist. I thought the story was too simple, and in my mind it couldn't be this clear-cut. So, I had a twist I kind of expected to occur and it didn't. The story is simply, that simple.
For some people, simplicity and readability, is a plus. The story is light and easily engaging, and self-contained. It is a fairy tale retelling that stands on its own, and it's enough. For others that skew towards more depth and a deeper connection to the characters, Stitching Snow may not be the best choice. This makes rating Stitching Snow hard because my personal feelings lean towards 2 stars, but when taking into account that this is a standalone, the amount of detail that was included was completely reasonable. It's also Christmas Eve, so I'll be a little charitable and give 3 stars, for a story that I liked.
-P.E.
Stitching Snow is a pretty decent standalone fantasy. I say "standalone fantasy" with a bit of suspicion because fantasies usually require several books of world building and plot building.
Stitching Snow was an impulse choice just because of the cover. I mean, it's a stunning cover. It it simple with pretty details, and the title is very significant to the story. I did not, however, read the synopsis and I went into this book knowing very little about it.
I can say now that it's a nice read, but not exactly my type. Snitching Snow has a good background, good characters, decent action, but where it doesn't suit my tastes is in its lack of detail. If you're looking for a fantasy in a single book, Snitching Snow is perfectly suitable. The characters and plot are remarkably developed considering how short the pages are, and I was quite surprised when I realized just how much had happened in the overall arc by 50 pages; by 100 pages.
The characters were well written. Essie is a character that is easy to like. She is a very human character with a bit of an edge that I appreciated. Essie knows all about sacrifice and she is quite capable. There were some very serious topics associated with Essie's character that were glanced upon, and this disappointed me because these topics were so serious, and were nothing more than plot twists. It's not that the author didn't consider the effects of such events on the characters, but they were not considered to be a big part of the story. For me, I would have enjoyed seeing in depth how these really big topics affected the characters, so I would have liked more elaboration, for character development.
The world building was also quite minimalist. I knew the basics, and that's all you really needed because the author took an intergalactic story and simplified it. I had a general sense of the settings, and some disgust towards the villains, and that was pretty much it. The details did not exist, and the strange part was that the ending of the story was extremely rushed. What should have been the longest part of the story ran out of real estate. It was weird because proportionally, what I believed to be the result of most of the build up, the area around the climax of the story, felt the shortest. This meant that the ending hurt Stitching Snow because it was way too 'easy'. There were side effects, but none of those were mentioned, and there wasn't enough tension built up before the solution.
The other part of my dissatisfaction was that I was waiting for another twist. I thought the story was too simple, and in my mind it couldn't be this clear-cut. So, I had a twist I kind of expected to occur and it didn't. The story is simply, that simple.
For some people, simplicity and readability, is a plus. The story is light and easily engaging, and self-contained. It is a fairy tale retelling that stands on its own, and it's enough. For others that skew towards more depth and a deeper connection to the characters, Stitching Snow may not be the best choice. This makes rating Stitching Snow hard because my personal feelings lean towards 2 stars, but when taking into account that this is a standalone, the amount of detail that was included was completely reasonable. It's also Christmas Eve, so I'll be a little charitable and give 3 stars, for a story that I liked.
-P.E.
I've been wanting to read this one for a while but I wasn't sure how much I would like it so I hadn't bought it yet. After reading your review, I may look for it at the library :)
ReplyDeleteI may be in a bit of a slump so don't take my review too seriously. But, I hope you do enjoy this one once you get to it!
Delete-P.E.
I have been so very intrigued about this one, and I feel like I want to read it because fairy-tale-science-fiction-retelling-yes-please but I keep on hearing how both the characters & the world building needed a bit more development, so I will wait for it to go on sale or win it in a giveaway, since I cannot get it from the library here...
ReplyDeleteThanks for the honest review P.E.!
I've heard so many lovely things about Meyer's books and they seem to be incredibly popular and of the same mould. Have you read them yet Pili? Would you recommend them to me?
Delete-P.E.