Snow in Summer: Fairest of Them All: Fairest of Them All

by Jane Yolen

Recasts the tale of Snow White, setting it in West Virginia in the 1940s with a stepmother who is a snake-handler.

• ISBN10: 0399256636
• ISBN13: 9780399256639
• Publish Date: 10 November 2011
• Publish Status: Remaindered
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 256
• Language: English

Reviews

[Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews]

Snow in Summer, (which is actually the poor girl's name) begins with the burial site of her mother and stillborn brother. Her father is distraught, and any happiness Snow may have had is over with her widowed father going into a five year depression. Every evening, Daddy goes to his wife's grave site and one evening comes back with an enchanting wife with a bewitched husband.

Snow's step-mama is a little off but unconcerning. That is until Snow in Summer gets "The Curse" and after becoming a woman Step-mama takes her to a tent church, Snow in Summer feels threaten, and runs for her life. Cue dwarfs. One of which is normal size and off at college. Do I hear wedding bells? Everyone lives happily ever after.

I wasn't sure what to think about Snow in Summer. Despite it taking place in the 30s it had more of a 2000s generation and not like a Snow White retelling at all. In fact, the Snow White storyline doesn't come into play until the last 30 pages, almost like an after thought. (Oh yeah, this is a Snow White retelling, better throw that in). Actually, I think it would have been better without it (and this Snow White fan pains to say it) but a general Young Adult novel instead. I enjoyed Snow's normal life (if you could call it that) and keep the dwarfs out of it. Maybe more of an elaboration of the cult tent church and have that be the action sequence? I don't know, but the book felt very stilled like trying to smash a puzzle piece in the wrong spot.

[Briana @ Pages Unbound]

Snow in Summer sounds as if it has an interesting premise. As a retelling of “Snow White” in West Virginia, it leads readers to expect a unique, more contemporary twist on the fairytale, perhaps like Suzanne Weyn’s retellings of “The Frog Prince” (Water Song) and “Rumpelstiltskin” (The Crimson Thread). Unfortunately, Snow in Summer is rather dull and barely draws on its setting at all.

If not for the summary, it might be difficult to tell that the book is in fact set in West Virginia. Summer might mention the fact once or twice, and she is clearly living in some mountains where it is much more common to be Protestant than to be Catholic—but none of this adds anything to the story. Summer’s father has a unique connection with the land, which contributes to the plot, but it is fair to say that Yolen could have put him anywhere with enough land to farm on—a fantasy land, a real one, a different country or a different time period—and the book would barely change.

It is important, however, that her father has this land because most of the book is actually about him, at least indirectly. The book is an enormously long set-up explaining his grief over his wife’s death, how he then meet’s Summer’s stepmother, and how the stepmother plots to destroy him so she can take the land for herself. Summer narrates all this, but she is a rather passive character. The parts of the book not about her father tend to be her excuses for why she allowed her stepmother to take advantage of her—basically that she was just so young and did not know any better.

The whole “Snow White” part kicks in only at the very end of the story. Summer encounters the magic mirror a few times, but the attempted murder, little men, death, and marriage occur very quickly all bunched together at the end of the book. It is extremely unsatisfying. And although there is a marriage, there is no romance at all. Several years magically pass without mention in the book between the point where Summer meets her future husband and when she actually marries. (Incidentally, Summer loves fairytales and even mentions “Snow White” at one point; this is very disconcerting to readers, but strangely meaningless to her since she falls for the old woman at the door act anyway.)

Snow in Summer is essentially a lot of set-up and very little substance. Yolen tries to make the tale original with the stepmother’s unique form of magic, but the explanations are so vague it is unclear what exactly this is, and with the setting, but she does not take advantage of it. The book is rather disappointing.

Also posted at Pages Unbound Book Reviews.