Poisoned by Jennifer Donnelly
Hello Books Lovers,
to say that it took me a while to pick up Jennifer Donnelly’s Poisoned is nothing, since Scholastic Press, the publishing house, sent it to me almost a year ago. But I finally read it and I can tell you what I thought about it in this review. First you need to know that Poisoned is a retellling of Snow White, like Stepsister, another book of this author, is a retellling of Cinderella.
The story did not meet my high expectations. It took the story a while to show me its potential. At first it seemed to be the true story of Snow White written badly, with the names of the characters different from the original ones, but the events the same. Then came the time when the hunter, who also happens to be our narrator, had to take Sophie’s heart for the queen, and he really does.
The dwarves come to the rescue of the princess, one of them gives her a new heart, and it can be said that this is where the true story of Poisoned begins. At this point we are already at 30% of the book. From here I began to like the story, gradually, more and more, without, unfortunately, reaching high levels. Probably the beginning was a big disadvantage.
And then there is Sophie, a character who did not convince me at all, for her choices, for her ideas, and for her ways of doing. What I loved madly was the addition of two new characters, the true villains of the story, more than the queen herself. Indeed, it is these two new villains that will influence the Queen’s choices.
The real beauty of this retelling is that it gives dark touches to a fairytale, and despite its ups and downs it gives a worthy definition of retelling. And if English is not your native language, I recommend that you also read it in english. The prose is quite basic, and in my opinion it is much nicer to read the original phrases, like: “Mirror, mirror, on the wall … who’s the deadliest of them all?”
I didn’t give you the names of the dwarves because as you can guess, those too have been changed. It took me a lifetime to learn the original ones, and still sometimes I forget some, imagine if I could remember these. What I remember is that they all start with J, and have lost a brother years ago, killed by the new villain, who controls craws, who is now on Sophie’s trail.
A children’s story transformed into something different, worthy of the stories of the Brothers Grimm.
