Ash by Malinda Lo

Ash

by Malinda Lo

The haunting, romantic lesbian retelling of Cinderella and modern queer classic by award-winning author Malinda Lo--now with an introduction by Holly Black, a letter from the author, a Q&A, and more!

In the wake of her father's death, Ash is left at the mercy of her cruel stepmother. Consumed with grief, her only joy comes by the light of the dying hearth fire, rereading the fairy tales her mother once told her. In her dreams, someday the fairies will steal her away. When she meets the dark and dangerous fairy Sidhean, she believes that her wish may be granted.

The day that Ash meets Kaisa, the King's Huntress, her heart begins to change. Instead of chasing fairies, Ash learns to hunt with Kaisa. Their friendship, as delicate as a new bloom, reawakens Ash's capacity for love--and her desire to live. But Sidhean has already claimed Ash for his own, and she must make a choice between fairy tale dreams and true love.

Entrancing and empowering, Ash beautifully unfolds the connections between life and love, and solitude and death, where transformation can come from even the deepest grief.

Reviewed by clementine on

3 of 5 stars

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Although I tend to be firmly stuck in the realistic fiction and dystopian genres, I do enjoy a fantastic retelling of a classic fairytale, and so I was certainly drawn towards Malinda Lo's eerie retelling of Cinderella - especially because I quite liked the idea of it having an LGBTQ spin.

I thought Ash was a solid first novel with quite nice prose and a compelling story. The chunks of it that were inspired by Cinderella were identifiable, but it was its own story which held up without the classic fairy tale behind it. There were additions that fleshed out the story, and the casting of the fairy godmother as a male fairy cursed to love Ash was really neat.

I do think that there were some issues with awkward pacing and phrasing which affected my enjoyment of the book and didn't allow me to become fully immersed in it. It was like it was almost incredibly atmospheric, but didn't quite manage. It moved too fast, and a lot of things weren't given enough time to fully develop, and, yes, the prose was not perfect. There were bits of it that made me pause to frown. Ash's relationships with Sidhean and Kaisa moved too fast for me - especially Sidhean, who didn't appear quite enough for me to really get a good grip on his character. Also, the tension needed to be ratcheted up a bit. Obviously it's going to have a happy ending, but I just felt like there could have been more obstacles in the way, to keep me guessing.

Overall, though, I did like it. I thought the concept was really good, the prose was in general quite nice, and it was interesting the whole way through. I will definitely be picking up Huntress.

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  • Started reading
  • 27 December, 2012: Finished reading
  • 27 December, 2012: Reviewed