Ms. Hen reviews Mirror Mended

 

Mirror Mended

Alix E. Harrow

Tordotcom

2022

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because she read the other one in this series, SPINDLE SPLINTERED, and loved it. That was a modern day version of SLEEPING BEAUTY, and this book contains the same characters, but is a spin on SNOW WHITE.

Fairy tales are all stories that have changed in different ways throughout history. The Brothers Grimm wrote down the stories that had existed for years and years, and put them into print, but no definite variation on each tale is solid. Disney might have tried to make audiences believe that their stories are the true ones, but they are farthest from the truth.

This novel takes us back to Zinnia Gray, who has become a SLEEPING BEAUTY hopping savior, fixing each story, so the endings are what they should be. Her friend, Charm, married a princess, Prim, and is living life in the suburbs. Zinnia gets sent to a SNOW WHITE world by the evil queen through a magic mirror. The queen wants to know how Zinnia travels from world to world.

The queen captures Zinnia, and almost kills her. The two travel around to different SNOW WHITE worlds, and meet different incarnations of Snow White and the evil queen. They try to save a young girl from a queen who is a cannibal, and they almost get murdered. Zinnia and the queen realize they have more in common than they thought.

Ms. Hen loved this novel. She adored seeing SNOW WHITE from a different perspective. Zinnia is queer, and likes to fight, and save people, even though she is sick, and should be taking care of herself. Ms. Hen doesn't know what the Brothers Grimm would think of this new queer spin on the fairy tales they put into print, but tales change over time, and people change as well.

Ms. Hen thinks fairy tales are important because they show us a stories that we know are already true somewhere in the universe. Fairy tales are like a magic mirror, that show us honesty, similar to the queen's mirror that shows the truth. The truth is difficult to see, but necessary and painful and lovely all at the same time.