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Girls Made of Snow and Glass

Book Notes

I so wanted to like this book. I so wanted this book to be magical. I so wanted this book to transform me. Alas.

GIrls Made of Snow and Glass is a retelling of the Snow White fairy tale. It is cleverly done, with all the characters in place, but with many dimensions to and insights of the characters.

And that's where the story lost me. The story has many words dedicated to the internal beliefs, the internal turmoil, the internal confusion of the two main characters and their limiting beliefs that I read probably three times my already fast clip just to get through yet another sob story about how one can't be loved and the other doesn't want to be her dead mother. We see the agony of the inner turmoil through the actions of the secondary characters, the fears of a father who has lost his wife, the greed of a powerful man who has lost his health, the desire for home and family of a young woman who lost both too young, the yearning to understand of a construct thrust into life and allowed the freedom to grow. Not the two main characters though, we're forced to endure every little "I can't be loved," "My father is cruel, but I can't break free of him," "My father is loving, but I need to breathe," "He's perfect, perfect eyes, perfect teeth, perfect hair." No wait, that last one was the crap Twilight series.

Much of the growth of the characters happens suddenly, just at the right time needed to yield a happy ending. I read too many happy endings. I'm glad for this one, yay happy ending when I need something uplifting, though I'm more likely to move to a technical book next. This one was too much angst. It's a fan rating.

They loved her mother, and Lynet looked like her mother, so they thought that they loved her, too.
Page 6

“You’ve left me behind,” Mina said softly after Lynet had lapsed into silent thought for too long. “Where did you go?”
Page 8

Lynet kept her head down. It was easier to talk about it when she wasn’t looking at anyone else—or at herself.
Page 9

But that’s what I am, she thought. That’s what I’ll always be.
Page 34

“There’s nothing you can do about it, nothing you can change, so what’s the point in knowing the truth? Why would I tell you, except to hurt you?”
Page 71

People aren’t rational when it comes to affairs of the heart.
Page 102

“Because I love the winter, too. The world here is frozen, and so it never changes, and so it is always what I expect it to be. There’s a comfort in that.”
Page 125

How can I make him happy again? she asked herself, but the reply was merciless: He doesn’t want to be happy.
Page 126

“I wish I knew how to make you happy without forgetting who I am,” she said, choking on the words. “But … I still love you, and … and I wanted to say good-bye.”
Page 161

It was only the dead mothers who were perfect—the living ones were messy and unpredictable.
Page 334

Who might she have become if her mother had never left, or if her father had been a loving man?
Page 364

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