A Fair Account of the Traitors Snow White and Rose Red Book Review

SYNOPSIS

No one hates Snow White more than her younger half sister, Rosavere. Not since a star broke the world a thousand years ago and cursed humans with Grand Banes—powers never meant to be theirs—has there been a more traitorous tale. Snow murdered their father and was executed for her crime by Queen Estelle. But Rose’s world is shattered when an ageless Snow reappears eleven years later and tries to assassinate the Queen.

After a mysterious golden bear aids Snow’s escape, Rose vows revenge on the ghost that still haunts her family. She hunts Snow across Albemar only to fall into the hands of a far more dangerous creature—Jack, a young man from a race of elves long thought extinct. Claiming the Queen enslaves elven children to create youth elixirs, Jack resolves to trade Rose’s life to Snow to save the last of his kind.

Both loyalty and vengeance waver when Rose discovers that a mirror forged from the Starfall may have warped Queen Estelle into a cunning monster. She must decide where her true allegiance lies . . . with the mother she’s loved all her life, or the enigmatic half sister she barely knows. The closer Rose gets to the mirror, the more she realizes that generations of her family are tangled in its reflection—and the price to free them all will shatter far more than glass.

Genre: Fantasy
Age: YA
Series: Standalone

REVIEW

An intricate plot, a gorgeous fairy tale setting, beautiful writing, compelling characters—this novel was everything I want in a fairy tale retelling…and more!

A Fair Account of the Traitors Snow White and Rose Red by S.E. Page is told in first person, present tense by Rosavere, crown princess of the Isle of Albemar. Although “crown princess” wasn’t always her role. That title was supposed to go to her half sister Snow White…until Snow killed their father, the king, with her ice powers and was sentenced to death for her crime. Now the weight of the kingdom, as well as the betrayal of her once beloved sister, is on Rosavere’s shoulders, and the only one she has to guide her is her cold-hearted mother. But when her supposedly dead sister returns with a golden bear and a vendetta to kill her stepmother, everything Rosavere thinks she knows is flipped on its head.

How do I even properly convey how much I loved this novel? This was easily one of the best books I’ve read in months. One of the best books I’ve read EVER.

The first thing that struck me was the writing. Ah, the WRITING. I can think of only two other stories I’ve read that had such an enthralling, gorgeous writing style. S.E. Page can paint words like no other. Her description and prose is like stepping into a field of flowers, you just want to breathe it in and soak up the sights. I couldn’t get enough of it. Occasionally I did have to read parts slowly to truly grasp everything, but I wanted to. This isn’t the type of book where you’re ripping through the pages. Instead it’s the kind you take sentence by sentence and absorb the beauty of it all.

Oftentimes when I read a particularly flowery written book, that’s all it is—just a showcase of the author’s talent with words, while the plot and characters get left behind. Not so with this one! Even if the writing had been simple, it still would have been one of the most fascinating books I’ve ever read.

It takes all the elements we know and love in Snow White and Rose Red and runs with them, which is probably my favorite type of retelling. It is so wildly different from the original tale, and yet, at the same time, there’s so very many threads from the original. But not only that! This is also a Snow White and the Seven Dwarves retelling! (Which I didn’t even realize when I started it, but it was a pleasant surprise.) Because hey, if you’re gonna have a protagonist named Snow White, why not make her both Snow Whites? I loved that! And the delightful thing was that the Snow White and the Seven Dwarves parts had elements from that fairy tale that hardly anyone ever acknowledges, like the use of a comb and ribbon.

Despite all this, this story was definitely an original. I’m not sure I can even explain the plot and overall feel of this book. It’s something you have to experience yourself. I’ve never really read anything like it, which I loved! It was so fresh and new. And yet, at the same time, so very fairy tale-ish. I think that’s what I loved about it the most. Everywhere you turned there was something fairy tale-like about it, from the strange magic, to giant foxes used as steeds, to a deadly silver forest, to dangerous elves. The world was both perilous and fascinating—which I think is exactly what fairy tale worlds are at their core. There is always danger, but there’s also so much beauty, and this story highlighted that more than anything.

The whole plot was told in such en engrossing way. Between each chapter we get short “historical excerpts” that were things like a page from someone’s diary, or a letter, or accounts from history books. These gave us little hints as to what was going on and slowly helped the reader put the puzzle pieces together. It was brilliant!

Rosavere was a really interesting protagonist to follow. She’s both stubborn and broken, bringing a depth to her character. You could feel her pain and indecisiveness as her world is suddenly turned upside down. Sometimes she made terrible decisions and could be infuriating, but there was always a reason behind it. What I particularly loved was that the story acknowledged that her pampered princess lifestyle made it hard for her to go off on an adventure. Usually in stories, even if the princess has supposedly been pampered all her life, when it’s time for her journey, she’s perfectly physically capable. And just…um??? This story took the realistic approach. When Rosavere breaks out of the castle walls she’s lived behind her whole life, she’s not even sort of prepared. After a few hours of hiking she’s exhausted and has bloodied feet, she has no clue what goes on outside her city, she doesn’t know how to fight, and she needed a lot of help along the way. But that didn’t make her any less of a person! It wasn’t her fault she was pampered. She was still brave and willing to do anything for those she cared about, despite her limitations. I became quite fond of this stubborn princess.

I gotta say, though, my favorite character was probably Jack. Not only is he a magical elf (which, ya know, is the BEST) he’s also a total sass master. I do so love the snarky ones.

The other characters popped off the pages as well. Although I do wish Snow’s personality had been delved into more. I never felt like I truly got to know her. She was definitely intriguing, but I felt a little distant from her sometimes.

The villains now, they were especially CHILLING. Like, make your skin crawl kind of chilling. It was great! ;D But seriously, these were some messed up, formidable foes. I was worried for the characters basically 99.999% of the time. The tension was tangible. Let’s just say I was never bored! There was something new and enticing and dangerous lurking around every page.

I will admit, sometimes I got really confused about the magic system. In fact, I’m still not 100% clear on how it all worked. It was also kinda…weird. If I understand correctly, the magic is connected to your soul, and you have to unbind part of your soul to let loose the magic? And if you use too much magic, it’ll rip away your soul seam-by-seam and kill you. …I think? Yeah, sort of strange. But that was really the only part I was a little ehh about.

Otherwise, I loved every. single. thing about this gorgeous, captivating, utterly unique story. It was one of those novels that made me want to ART. If you’re a writer (or an artist!) you probably know what I’m talking about. It was just so inspirational. It filled up my creative soul. Though it didn’t hurt that it was basically the exact type of story I like to tell myself. Gimme ALL the dark and creepy but still utterly beautiful fairy tale retellings! I seriously couldn’t get enough of it. It gained a spot on my “favorites” shelf on GoodReads, and not many stories get that honor! But this is truly a new favorite read.

Basically, GO READ IT! It’s literally only $0.99 in the Kindle store (or $10 for a paperback), so you have no excuse. *grins*

Snow White & Rose Red Elements
Like I said, there are so many elements from the original tale. Snow White and Rose Red as sisters without a father, a golden bear, a mischievous dwarf—it’s all there. But it takes these things and expands and twists and shapes them into such an intricate story.

It’s also very much a Snow White and the Seven Dwarves story. In fact, I’m not sure which of the two fairy tales it’s more like. At first it seems to be more like Snow White and Rose Red, but later you realize how many Snow White elements there really are. I loved that though. The author wove both the stories together so well, it would have been an entirely different story if she had only used one of the fairy tales. It worked perfectly!

I was also sooo happy with how many little nods we got from the original tales. Kudos to the author for knowing her fairy tales!

Content Caution
This is definitely a Young Adult book, but I’d probably suggest it for the older half of that audience than the younger. It got a little…bloody. I felt like someone was bleeding every other page. There’s just a lot of thorny vines being used as weapons, or icicles, or broken mirror shards, and even leaves that are as sharp as blades. Everything is just sharp in this world. I don’t know how else to say it. There was also some talk of people being kidnapped and drained of their blood to grow a special flower. Yeah, pretty gross. Thankfully that was only mentioned not shown. But still. Lots of blood! The whole story was kinda dark.

At the same time, it just worked for the novel. The gore felt like…fairy tale gore, not thriller gore. I have nooo clue if that even makes sense to anyone but me? I don’t know, nothing was there for the “shock factor”. It was just there to show how dangerous the people and world were. I personally didn’t have a problem with it, but if you’re a bit squeamish, I wanted to give you a heads up!

If you’re looking for a fluffy, romantic fairy tale…this isn’t it. This is the dark, creepy, dangerous kind. Which is my FAVORITE. But I realize that’s not everyone’s cup of tea. And, like I mentioned earlier, the magic system was very odd and tied into a person’s soul somehow. Not sure how I felt about all that. But, again, it kind of worked with the strange, intricate world.

Otherwise, it was perfectly clean! No language or crudeness or sexual content. In fact, to be a fairy tale, the romance was very much at the minimum. It was refreshing! I was pleased all the way around!

Conclusion
This was truly one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read in my life. I felt like it took the meaning of a fairy tale to its core and brought it to life in such a vibrant way. I could seriously fangirl forever. Just…just read it, guys!

The plot had me enraptured, the world was so complex and fascinating, the characters’ emotions were tangible, the stakes were high, the writing style blew me away. It was a masterpiece of a novel.