Jen Calonita is added to the line-up of authors reworking these twisted versions of Disney movies. She's written this one, based on Snow White, and the next book in the series, which is based on Frozen.
This is the weakest of the series so far, because it barely changes the story. It makes the queen a little more evil, because she kills Snow White's mother, who is the Evil Queen's younger sister. She banishes Snow's father and tells the people he abandoned them and his daughter. Then it goes right into the regular plot: Snow is a threat to her beauty and her crown so she has the huntsman kill her, but he can't and she finds the dwarves. The biggest difference here is what happens after because Snow is determined to take back her kingdom, instead of singing and playing house. The prince finds her and takes her to her father, who says he physically can't return to the kingdom because of the Evil Queen's curse. So it's up to the prince and the dwarves to team up with Snow and get the local villagers to help rise up against the queen.
It is nice to see Snow and the prince spend more time together and more realistically develop feelings for each other. Then near the end comes the cover twist, which is the prince getting the poisoned apple, but he's poisoned for, like, a couple hours before Snow kisses him and breaks the spell.
It was an enjoyable book, but not nearly as good as the others. It's only lightly twisted and even more lightly dark. Snow can't even kill the queen. She just sticks her in the dungeon after destroying the mirror after a bunch of simpering instances of her thinking about how she could never kill anyone. She's a witch who killed your mother, banished your father, neglected you and then tried to kill you repeatedly. Just fucking kill her. Sheesh.
I'd say read this one is you're a bit of a completist like me who wants to read the whole series, but if you're just picking and choosing from this series, skip it.
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