Remember when I had Covid a few weeks ago? Well I get to deal with an awful stomach bug now, courtesy of my adorable younger daughters bringing the worst of germs home from school. Though that's totally bad enough, my bougie self can't just let it be that, oh no. I kicked that illness off by kneeling on the floor of a Walmart bathroom for a half hour, throwing up literally every thing I had ever eaten.
It was a low moment in my life. Matt still believes I need to burn my clothes because that floor was foul.
Midnight in Everwood - M.A. Kuzniar
A spell-binding retelling of The Nutcracker, filled with enchanted toys, decadent balls, fierce feminine friendships and a forbidden romance. For fans of The Toymakers, Caraval and The Bear and the Nightingale.
There’s nothing Marietta Stelle loves more than ballet, but after Christmas, her dreams will be over as she is obligated to take her place in Edwardian society. While she is chafing against such suffocating traditions, a mysterious man purchases the neighbouring townhouse. Dr Drosselmeier is a charming but calculating figure who wins over the rest of the Stelle family with his enchanting toys and wondrous mechanisms.
When Drosselmeier constructs an elaborate set for Marietta’s final ballet performance, she discovers it carries a magic all of its own. On the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve, she is transported to a snowy forest, where she encounters danger at every turn: ice giants, shadow goblins and the shrieking mist all lurk amidst the firs and frozen waterfalls and ice cliffs. After being rescued by the butterscotch-eyed captain of the king’s guard, she is escorted to the frozen sugar palace. At once, Marietta is enchanted by this glittering world of glamorous gowns, gingerbread houses, miniature reindeer and the most delicious confectionary.
But all is not as it seems and Marietta is soon trapped in the sumptuous palace by the sadistic King Gelum, who claims her as his own. She is confined to a gilded prison with his other pets; Dellara, whose words are as sharp as her teeth, and Pirlipata, a princess from another land. Marietta must forge an alliance with the two women to carve a way free from this sugar-coated but treacherous world and back home to follow her dreams. Yet in a hedonistic world brimming with rebellion and a forbidden romance that risks everything, such a path will never be easy.
Do you know what I really, really love? A re-telling of a classic story. I will read anything if you tell me it is a re-telling and I really don't know why. I'm all in, and this one is a gorgeous re-telling of The Nutcracker and it was worth me staying up to finish this despite being totally too tired to be staying up. There’s nothing Marietta Stelle loves more than ballet, but after Christmas, her dreams will be over as she is obligated to take her place in Edwardian society. While she is chafing against such suffocating traditions, a mysterious man purchases the neighbouring townhouse. Dr Drosselmeier is a charming but calculating figure who wins over the rest of the Stelle family with his enchanting toys and wondrous mechanisms.
When Drosselmeier constructs an elaborate set for Marietta’s final ballet performance, she discovers it carries a magic all of its own. On the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve, she is transported to a snowy forest, where she encounters danger at every turn: ice giants, shadow goblins and the shrieking mist all lurk amidst the firs and frozen waterfalls and ice cliffs. After being rescued by the butterscotch-eyed captain of the king’s guard, she is escorted to the frozen sugar palace. At once, Marietta is enchanted by this glittering world of glamorous gowns, gingerbread houses, miniature reindeer and the most delicious confectionary.
But all is not as it seems and Marietta is soon trapped in the sumptuous palace by the sadistic King Gelum, who claims her as his own. She is confined to a gilded prison with his other pets; Dellara, whose words are as sharp as her teeth, and Pirlipata, a princess from another land. Marietta must forge an alliance with the two women to carve a way free from this sugar-coated but treacherous world and back home to follow her dreams. Yet in a hedonistic world brimming with rebellion and a forbidden romance that risks everything, such a path will never be easy.
I loved this so much and I got House of Salt and Sorrow vibes because it's dark and moody, but mythical and magical at the same time. You don't really know what's going on, but you kind of think you do, and then at the end it takes a quick turn. The writing is absolutely gorgeous, and there is so much detail that I feel like I need to do another read through because there were some things towards the end that I kind of remembered being noted earlier in the book, so I have to see if I missed some clues. I also never read the original Nutcracker stories, so now I kind of want to go back to see what similarities (and differences) there are. Also, this villain??? WHOA BOY.
If I have to give a critique, it would be the sex scenes... which aren't really sex scenes. Honestly this feels more new adult than young adult, and though I did like the romance overall, some of these scenes were just so off that it would have been better to leave them out all together and let readers assume what happened.
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