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Gregory Maguire
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Pages: 320 (Paperback)
ISBN: 0060988657
Pub: ReganBooks,U.S.
Pub date: 2005-06
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 21811
Reader Reviews:
1 Star for Originality! (4/9 people found this helpful)
I bought this book with high expectations of a wonderful,modern retelling of a traditional fairytale, however all I got was a disapointment. The author tries to combine too many ideas into this novel and ends up rambling for pages at a time,whilst generally leaving the reader behind. The book starts well enough and you become engrossed in a fantasy world but it all gets a bit dry and boring the further into the story he plods.
I give this one star just for the idea!
Murder and Magic (5/8 people found this helpful)
Quite simply this is a wonderful book. I particularly like the way it makes you feel sympathetic to even the more immoral characters. I also think that the interweaving of the magical world with a realistic depiction of Italy in this era is very skilfully done.
brilliant stuff (6/9 people found this helpful)
i just love these books, i think this is one of his best i really couldnt put it down, he has such a wonderful imagination and the way he combines fairy tales and history and makes it work so well is pure magic, i also love the way this book leads you on to wanting to find out more about the borgias, he manages to give you a gripping story with wonderful descriptions and also shock you too without being crass, as you read you see the whole world open up in your mind, the dwarves in particular, this book is a treat for your eyes and brain, i stayed up till 4.00am reading it, great stuff.
Fascinating milieu and characters, but too slow (16/17 people found this helpful)
In early sixteenth century Italy, seven-year-old Bianca de Nevada lives happily with her widowed father. But when a caravan arrives at her home in Montefiore, bearing the famous Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia, her life is turned upside down. Her father sent away, Bianca is left in the hands of Lucrezia, who plans the girl's murder. Escaping into the woods, Bianca soon discovers a group of seven magical dwarfs...
I am rather of two minds with this book. On the one hand, the author does an excellent job of retelling the story of Snow White, placing it in Renaissance Italy, peopled with fascinating characters. On the other hand, the story starts out slow, and never seems to pick up the pace. Indeed, the story seems to drag along from start to end as if the author had a great idea for a story, but couldn't think up all of the details it needed. He obviously knows a great deal about Renaissance Italy, but he cannot combine the two elements of his story into the really fascinating story that it should be.
Overall, I found the book to be good, at times even very good, but it is not the great story it should be. I give it a guarded recommendation.
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