Helpful Score: 10
I can't decide whether I like Maguire or not. I somewhat enjoyed Wicked, it's interesting to say the least. Mirror Mirror was...something else. It's always interesting to see someone's interpretation of a well-known story, but Maguire just runs away with it. I wasn't a huge fan of this story.
Helpful Score: 7
From the writer of Wicked comes another fun read. The "true" story of Snow White. Reads like historical fiction intermingled with fantasy. Entertaining and fun. Familiar and off the wall.
Helpful Score: 7
I started off with Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, and thought it was very good once I was able to get into it. I decided to continue on with this one, not the greatest book I have read! I'm having trouble deciding if I like this author or not!
Between the Borgia's, the runaway storyline, it was mildly entertaining, but not a fantastic book.
Between the Borgia's, the runaway storyline, it was mildly entertaining, but not a fantastic book.
Helpful Score: 5
A great re-telling of a folk tale classic. A grown-up fairy tale with so much in it that makes you stop and think. But, don't make the mistake I made and read it trying to find the similarities. Read it for what it is, fabulous.
Helpful Score: 3
I enjoyed "Wicked" very much, but have not enjoyed any of Maguire's other novels quite as much. I found it very hard to "get into" this book.
Helpful Score: 3
Good read. Interesting twist on the Snow White story.
Helpful Score: 2
Somehow not as good as I was expecting. Some parts were a bit confusing..... and I definetly wasn't expecting the Borgia's to be in the story.....
Overall though it was a good read.
Overall though it was a good read.
Helpful Score: 2
Different look at a common fairy tale. I thought it was pretty good, but it is NOT for young readers.
Helpful Score: 1
I'm not sure what it is about this author's writing that I don't like. Maybe it's the flow of the story. I think this book is better than Wicked. I like the refrences to real historical figures. I did not like the portrayal of the dwarves, however. It was very dificult to understand what kind of picture he was trying to paint with them.
Helpful Score: 1
It was interesting, but not really what I had expected...a little too strange for my tastes.
Helpful Score: 1
This is the backstory of Snow White. Very good read, I loved it.
Helpful Score: 1
Interesting take on the Snow White story, although Maguire displays a disturbing fetish of the human reproductive system. That really turned me off.
Helpful Score: 1
All of Maguire's novels, this one included, are so horrible over-written and dull. Wicked was a one hit wonder.
Helpful Score: 1
I loved the historical fiction take on the Snow White story. It was well writen and I could not put the book down.
Helpful Score: 1
I found it boring but my cousin loved it, so I guess it's a matter of opinion. Definately different from the regular Snow White fairy tale, which is kind of cool. I just thought it could've been told better.
Helpful Score: 1
Entertaining, but not as good as other Maguire books. A twist on Snow White.
Helpful Score: 1
I agree this book is s-l-o-w as molasses. It's an OK read. I had to re read it since I got lost and had no idea what was going on. The idea of the book was also hard to grasp. AND I felt there was no satisfying ending :(
Helpful Score: 1
Not my favorite Maguire book. It was a good story and well written but I was expecting a realistic tie into the fairy tale and it wasn't there. The fairy tale part seems added as an after-fact. I don't think it should have had a fairy tale linked title. I would still recomend it as a read but it did not make it to my 'Keeper Shelf' nor will I read it a second time. I loved Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister and Wicked.
Helpful Score: 1
If you're a Macguire fan you know his style. This one is about Snow White and 'the real story'. Interesting as usual!
Helpful Score: 1
A spellbinding retelling of Snow White! I couldn't put it down!
Helpful Score: 1
being a HUGE fan of Greggory Maguire, i was excited and dissapointed by this book. I think that he has an imagination that is interwoven with intelect enough to craft anything into a captivating piece of art... that being said, this book was my least favorite of his...
Helpful Score: 1
An interesting twist on the Snow White story. I was not overly impressed with it, but it was worth a once-over.
Helpful Score: 1
Maguire's prose is dense and heavily descriptive. If you enjoy Dickens, historical fiction, and fantasy/science fiction writers such as Bradbury and Gaiman, you will probably enjoy this book, because it blends thick description with intense characters, plot twists, and mixture of real-world elements with magic. I found it very appealing and creative.
Helpful Score: 1
A very interesting take on Snow White. Although I liked "Wicked' better this one was good. Interesting view of the dwarves.
I loved this book. Maguire uses historical facts to create a world for Snow White to come to life.
Great. His writing can be hard to follow at times but it presents a different twist on Snow White.
This was a good read. I don't think it's as dark as many people told me and what I read from other readers... but it was good. Diffently has some differnt twist to the story and is quit fanciating. I liked it.
I liked the way he incorporates actual historical people into the fairy tale. However, it was a little contrived in places.
This is a cool spin on the classic fairy tale of sleeping beauty. It was an easy read (although I wish there would have been more of a story with the dwarves.) Its a story of trickery, jealousy and betrayal and how one family changed so many lives and none in a good way! I recommend it although in my opinion he has yet to top the original Wicked book!
I love Maguire's remakes of classics. Amazing twists and new (adult) ways of thinking about children's tales. Fantastic.
Not as good as Wicked - which is one of my favorite books of all time - but still very good and hard to put down. I wasn't disappointed! I love the way Gregory Maguire writes and I look forward to reading more from him
Great read and a fun twist on the old standard of Snow White.
A quick and entertaining read. Maguire is a real master at creating these fictional worlds that stir all five senses. Didn't enjoy it as much as Confessions, but good.
I thought that this was a wonderful retelling of the more tradition version we've been used to reading. The author took some interesting twists with his that are a great example of his creativity when it comes to weaving a new story out of an old favorite. I found it a quick read and I had a hard time putting it down because the writing style was simplistic yet beautiful at the same time.
This is my third try with this author. Am sending it on to someone who might like this style or what ever.
This was a pretty good book, but not as good as Wicked, in my opinion.
Maguire has a lock on clever, elaborate retellings of fairy tales, turning them inside out and couching them in tongue-in-cheek baroque prose. After his revisionist takes on Oz's Wicked Witch of the West (Wicked) and Cinderella's ugly stepsisters (Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister), he now tackles Snow White. The notorious Borgia habit of poisoning rivals inspired him to transplant the classic tale to 16th-century Tuscany, where Vicente de Nevada is an expatriate Spanish widower who lives with his daughter, the fair Bianca. Beholden to sinister Cesare Borgia and Cesare's sister (and perhaps lover) Lucrezia, Vicente is sent on what appears to be a fool's errand, to discover and steal from a Middle East monastery a branch of the Tree of Knowledge complete with three apples. When Bianca is 11, Cesare's attraction to her causes the envious Lucrezia to order a young hunter to murder her and deliver her heart in a casket. Bianca, of course, is spared and taken in by seven dwarfs. But this is not Disney; the dwarfs are boulders, stirred to life by Bianca's arrival ("a clothed, bearded obstinacy became slowly apparent"). Several years pass in surreal, dreamlike fashion, with Bianca tending to the dwarfs, who cavort stiffly and philosophize collectively. When Vicente returns successful, Lucrezia poisons an apple for her rival. Innocent Bianca's fate is gentle, but that of the corrupt Lucrezia, in brilliant Venice, is appropriately grotesque. Fairy tales in their original form are often brutal and disturbing; with his rich, idiosyncratic storytelling, Maguire restores the edge to an oft-told tale and imbues it with a strange, unsettling beauty.
One minute I enjoyed this book, and the next, I found it frustrating. Sometimes the writing came off as really pretentious and self-conscious, as if the author were saying to the reader: "Look! Obscure vocabulary and elaborate metaphors! You are reading Intelligent Literature."
However, I loved Maguire's characterization of Lucrezia Borgia as the tale's wicked queen. She was so deliciously evil, it gave me chills and made me wonder gleefully what she would do next. Maguire gave the reader frequent glimpses of the hurt, confused woman behind the chillingly beautiful mask, so it was possible to sympathize with Lucrezia, as well. If only Bianca, the heroine of the story, and her father had been such interesting characters ...
However, I loved Maguire's characterization of Lucrezia Borgia as the tale's wicked queen. She was so deliciously evil, it gave me chills and made me wonder gleefully what she would do next. Maguire gave the reader frequent glimpses of the hurt, confused woman behind the chillingly beautiful mask, so it was possible to sympathize with Lucrezia, as well. If only Bianca, the heroine of the story, and her father had been such interesting characters ...
if you read Wicked this book is highly recommended.
Great book. Intresting take on the fairy tale of snow white
I found this book slow going and really not that interesting. I had planeed on reading other books by this author, but have now changed my mind.
This is NOT a children's book, even though it's a retelling of Snow White. In this case, the evil witch is a Borgia, and the book is full of descriptions of her depravity, like incest (who wants to read about a woman turned on by her brother?). It was a nasty book and the twists were not enough to make it a good retelling. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.
This book is really great! It's written by the author of Wicked, so you know it's good.
I loved this one! I liked it even better than Wicked. Really good story.
Another version of Snow White and the seven dwarfs. Don't miss "Wicked" which is just as good
Another book from the author of "Wicked." This time it's a rewriting of the tale of Snow White.
Love this book's (and the others Maguire has written) twist of a Fairy Tale's point of view!
OK book, but not as interesting or unique as Wicked.
I just couldn't get into this book. I enjoyed Wicked but this one, boring.
Anyone else watch the Borgia's on Netflix? How can you not? It's like a historical soap opera, and my guilty pleasure. I absolutely LOVED how Maguire tied in the historical Borgia's to this fairy tale. I don't even care that this story was entirely made up to follow the tale of Snow White. As I am already intrigued by the perilous tales of the Borgia's, this fantastical fairy tale just heightened my love for the tales of the treacherous family. Save Wicked, this happens to be on of my favorite books.
4 out of 5 stars!
4 out of 5 stars!
quirky twist on sleeping beauty
The year is 1502, and seven-year-old Bianca de Nevada lives perched high above the rolling hills and valleys of Tuscany and Umbria at Montefiore, the farm of her beloved father, Don Vicente. But one day a noble entourage makes its way up the winding slopes to the farm--and the world comes to Montefiore. In the presence of Cesare Borgia and his sister, the lovely and vain Lucrezia--decadent children of a wicked pope--no one can claim innocence for very long. When Borgia sends Don Vicente on a years-long quest, he leaves Bianca under the care--so to speak--of Lucrezia. She plots a dire fate for the young girl in the woods below the farm, but in the dark forest salvation can be found as well...A lyrical work of stunning creative vision, MIRROR MIRROR gives fresh life to the classic story of Snow White--and has a truth and beauty all its own.
