Gilded / Marissa Meyer / Book Review

Gilded

Blurb

Serilda is a storyteller, and everybody knows, though some choose to call her a liar instead. Daughter of a miller, the townspeople say she's cursed, though her father always called her blessed by the gods. She's bad luck: they say that, too. But she's never believed it--never believed herself cursed, never believed herself unlucky--and her stories are just stories, nothing more. Not until the night the Wild Hunt comes to her door. Caught where she shouldn't be, the Erlking himself has questions. But Serilda can answer questions easy enough, and so she spins him a tale: the tale of a gold-spinner who needs to harvest straw under the full moon. And he accepts her statement as fact, at first. But when the full moon rises again, the Erlking returns, and this time he has no questions. He's got a task instead: a room full of fresh straw and a spinning wheel. Serilda must prove herself a gold-spinner or die. And not even the best liar can spin straw into gold. 

Thoughts

If this book was published five years ago, I would have been impressed. As it stands, it just feels like one of many. The market is saturated with fantasy just like this, and with that in mind, it wasn't really worth the (incredibly large) page count. 

Pros

• A Serious Tale: Marissa Meyer can tell a good story. That's undeniable. I'm a fan of all her work so far, to various degrees. Until now, however, her work has been quite whimsical, from a cyborg Cinderella to a redemption arc for the Queen of Hearts. Here, the tone is much darker, much steadier--much less light and fun. And it's really great to see that Meyer can tell a different sort of story than what we've seen so far. She's established now, and it's the perfect time to branch out and open new doors for the type of storyteller she can be. 

• Nonbinary Gods: This is a world of gods and goblins, and the gods herein use nonbinary pronouns (specifically "they" and "them"). As the characters themselves say, the gods are not limited by gender and sex. They are whatever they wants to be, and that just makes sense. Maybe it doesn't make sense for all of the gods to be nonbinary (as they unfortunately all seem to be), but it makes sense that some of them would be. And that's a deviation from traditional fantasy that I'd like to see more of--gods that don't have the artificial limitations of humanity imposed upon them. 

• Role Reversal: The best part of this Rumpelstiltskin retelling is the reversal of the roles. Rumpelstiltskin himself is no longer the wily faerie, cunning and scheming to steal a child. He takes no advantage of the miller's daughter. He doesn't even connive--not where Serilda is concerned at least. And the king isn't a revered husband, a wealthy would-be lover, someone who would raise a girl from her lowly class and make her the mother of future kings. He's wicked. He's cruel. He's dark and twisted. And that intimate reversal of the dark and the light from the original story, while not earth-shattering (the original tale does have hints of these traits, after all), still proves to be a fun way to rework an old tale. 

Cons

• Paragraph Breaks: This critique sounds weird and petty. In fact, it is weird and petty, but the paragraph breaks are super distracting from the very beginning of the book. The paragraphs break for what I assume is meant to be some sort of dramatic emphasis, but instead of being dramatic or emphasizing important details, all this served to do was make shorter paragraphs that felt incomplete. It was distracting to read, having to mentally jump between paragraphs before an idea was complete. It was very irritating and off-putting from the start. 

• Flat Fantasy Descriptions: Though the plot and characters are interesting enough, the backdrops are generic Western fantasy. And that's kind of unfortunate. The Erlking's court might be creepy and blood-speckled, but once we venture outside, we just get medieval fantasy. There are villages and inns, traders and millers, young school children and work horses dragged through the trees. And that backdrop just didn't add much to the story or to fantasy in general. 

• Generic: The fantasy backdrop, unfortunately, isn't the only generic piece of this fantasy. While the combination of tale and not-tale material might be new, the story told and the additions made aren't that new. The Rumpelstiltskin part of this story is fairly straightforward (not unexpected, considering Meyer's other fairy tales). There's nothing wrong with a straightforward rendition of a fairy tale, and the fact that it is Rumpelstiltskin at all makes it somewhat unique. The part that Meyer added--the Wild Hunt and the deadly Fae--might be a newer addition to the Rumpelstiltskin tale but is, unfortunately, not at all unique in contemporary YA fantasy. The Fae are very, very in right now. It's, in fact, the de facto YA fantasy mode at the moment, the way vampires were in everything ten years ago. And so, though these two parts might come together in a new rendition of Rumpelstiltskin, they're not particularly unique and interesting. There's not much to make this book stand out from the crowd aside from the unusual levels of cruel fairy violence. And gore isn't enough to break ground. 

Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

7/10

Anyone who loves the entangling of fairies and fairy tale found in Sarah J. Maas's A Court of Thorns and Roses will sink right into this dark fairy realm. Those who appreciate twisted fairy tale role reversals like those in Margaret Owen's Little Thieves will appreciate the new life given to these fairy tale figures. 

Details

Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Date: November 2, 2021
Series: Untitled
Buy It HERE

Note: I was provided with an ARC by the publisher through Edelweiss+ in exchange for an honest review. All opinions here are my own.