She celebrates her last expected birthday by jokingly pricking her finger on a spindle at a fairy tale–themed party thrown by her best friend, Charm Baldwin-and immediately falls through the multiverse into a Disneyesque, “knock-off fairy tale” world. Sleeping Beauty–obsessed Zinnia Gray is dying of Generalized Roseville Malady. Overall it's more a 2.5 but I can't help but feel disappointed in this one, don't think I'll pick up the sequel.Part portal fantasy, part dissertation on Sleeping Beauty adaptations, this overly complicated novella from Harrow ( The Once and Future Witches) offers a layered look at how fairy tales serve as mirrors to society. I too I'm stuck with an un-rewrittable story, and it is very true that the only way forward is to not be on your own and fight like hell for your right to live. I love folklore and takes as much as A E H, so all the references and rewriting echoed and hit home for me. Some elements of the story telling around disease and disability felt weak and at times straight up ableist in their cliché-ness. Maybe it's the audiobook narrator's repetitive tone, maybe it's cause I too have an incurable disease and I guess I'm bitter about the lack of multiverse and opportunities to win even only a few years over my degenerative symptoms? I don't know. Harrow's previous work and the production of the audio version of The Once and Future Witches is a GEM, so this was a true let down. I really really wanted to love this book, I've absolutely fell head over heels for Alix E. When the narrator and the story let you down. But when Zinnia pricks her finger, something strange and unexpected happens, and she finds herself falling through worlds, with another sleeping beauty, just as desperate to escape her fate.Ī Macmillan Audio production from Tordotcom Her best friend Charm is intent on making Zinnia's last birthday special with a full sleeping beauty experience, complete with a tower and a spinning wheel. Not much is known about her illness - just that no one has lived past 21.

When she was young, an industrial accident left Zinnia with a rare condition. It's Zinnia Gray's 21st birthday, which is extra-special because it's the last birthday she'll ever have.

Harrow's A Spindle Splintered brings her patented charm to a new version of a classic story. 'A vivid, subversive and feminist reimagining of Sleeping Beauty, where implacable destiny is no match for courage, sisterhood, stubbornness and a good working knowledge of fairy tales.' (Katherine Arden, author of the Winternight trilogy)

A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow