October 25, 2013

Snow White Sorrow by Cameron Jace

Snow White Sorrow (The Grimm Diaries, #1)
Snow White Sorrow by Cameron Jace
Series: The Grimm Diaries, #1
Source: Bought
Publisher: Self-published
Publication Date: May 30, 2013
What if all you knew about fairy tales was wrong?

Sixteen year old Loki Blackstar is no Prince Charming. His mother is a ghost. His only friend is a red Cadillac that sings to him through the radio. He looks like an Angel but acts like jerk. No wonder he has been banned from Heaven, which is the least of his troubles. Loki needs a job to pay for school and support himself.

Still, Loki has a rare gift: He is a Dreamhunter. One of the few in the world who can hunt and kill immortal demons in their dreams so they never wake up again.

When Loki is sent to kill a sixteen-year-old vampire girl the locals call Snow White Sorrow, he is pulled into a magical but dangerous world. The locals believe the monster to be Snow White.

The real Snow White... living in the ruins of an ancient castle in a small town. She is described as horribly beautiful, terrifyingly enchanting, and wickedly lovely.

What he finds instead is a beautiful monster girl filled with rage and hurt, who has an epic untold story to tell of things such like why the Brothers Grimm altered the fairy tale, who the Evil Queen really is, where the mirror came from, and who possessed it.

Snow White has killed every person who has dared come near the castle where she once lived with the queen. Mysteriously, she lets Loki live, and whispers two words in his ears; two words that will change his life forever.
Snow White Sorrow was one of those books that I picked up just because. It looked interesting, and twisted fairy tales are my absolute favorite theme. And while the twisted fairy tales angle panned out (loved the "Grimm diaries" take) the actual way it was done wasn't all that great. I know this is a weird place to start, but let's start with the ending. The "ending" wasn't really an ending. The fairy tale itself wasn't resolved, nor were most of my questions answered. It just kind of...ended. Dropped off the ends of the earth without a goodbye, just stopped. *END of Book one*

Here's where I ask...what happens? I feel like I don't want to make an effort to read the next one if you're going to do me like that! I need to have at least two issues resolved. Give me that much, seriously! Other than that, though, I really liked this one. The characters weren't nothing to write home about, but the fairy tales...gotta love them.

I loved all the twists (Georgie Porgie, Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, and maybe even some others) that were present. They're what gave this one three stars for enjoyability. Other than that, it was just like every other book I've been reading lately-- disappointing. I think my standards must have gone up or something. Who knows.

Anywho, I found Loki to be an alright kind of character. I even liked him sometimes, but honestly, most of the time, Loki is a huge bonehead. He's got an innocent, childlike thought process, but then sometimes you realize that he's way ahead of you. It's weird, he's got all of this darkness inside of him, but he just seems like a little kid. He expects the best of everyone, and sometimes it's downright distracting.

Also, randomly out of nowhere, occasionally you'll get one sentence out of another character's point of view. It's kind of awkward. It threw me out of the story a bit, and I feel like I could never get fully immersed in Snow White Sorrow.

All in all, I liked the fairy tale elements of this one, but the characters were lacking, and I had hoped for a more resolved ending. Not a bad book, all things considered.

10 comments:

  1. I was actually really interested by this book because of the cover and the whole fairy-tale thing, but I lost interest by the time it came out. Does that make sense? LOL
    I don't want to read a book that's not going to give me any satisfaction at the end, though :/



    I definitely think your standards have gone up. It happens, especially in bloggers, because we're constantly finding the fault in the books, or pinning down what went wrong, so with time we become more attuned to that, and look for books that are better.
    Which just makes me that more excited for your re-read of Hush Hush! *squee*


    I'm really sad you only had disappointing reads lately, though. I hope your next book would make you so wowed you'll five-star it!

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  2. Sounds like the TV show Once Upon the Time with it's fairytale twists.Looks like a great book.Great review,Meg.

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  3. It kind of was, but I enjoyed the show a lot more than I enjoyed the book. Thanks for commenting!

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  4. Absolutely. Some books just aren't meant to make the massive "I want you now" cut. ;P I think it was created as a long series, so that you'd have to buy each and every book if you wanted any satisfaction. :/ I hate when a story becomes that!


    Hahaha, well... I guess so. Suddenly it's like all my ratings are fluctuating constantly - I never know if I'm going to love a read or not anymore. Sometimes, by the time I get to the review, I feel like it needs a lower rating. Hahahaha I don't know if that'll be a squee for me - what if I hate it?! What kind of post shall we make then?! (We'll see. As soon as I finish Allegiant, I think I'll read Hush Hush.) (LOL, I almost wrote "Hush Hustle". Whoops!)


    I'm really hard to five star... and to be honest, I'm way ahead on reviews? Like, until the middle of November ahead. LOL. :P

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  5. I just shudder looking at the amount of prequels this book has. Like, do I have to read them all?... will I miss something if I don't? *head spins* that's probably what put me off the series most, actually :/


    If you hate it, it will make for a really interesting post, I think. Like, you could compare your opinions now and then. However, I don't really believe you'll hate it. You might like it less, but I think your brain might remember the feelings you had when you first read it. Like the Twilight saga - I still love it, even though after re-reading and reviewing books 2 and 3 I gave them two stars. Logically, they're bad books. The feelings I have toward them are still love *shrug*
    (LOL, Hush Hustle. I'll remember that one!)


    I envy you. I read a TON of books in the past 2 weeks. Should've filled half of November, too... but. I just don't have much to say about them - certainly not enough to fill a whole review. I'm actually working on "mini reviews" for them now, so I'll have something... *sigh*

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  6. Great review! Not sure if it's just me, but the girl on the cover is just creepy! I'm sorry you couldn't enjoy this, I love fairytale based novels too, but only when it's been written properly! I've never heard of this book before, but I don't think I'll give it a go either now.


    And having higher book standards is good! It means you're now able to catch inconsistencies and not waste your time on badly written novels. Especially when there's so many amazing books out there to read!

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  7. Thanks! It's totally not just you, I think that she's creepy as well! Fairytale novels are a hard thing for me - I love them, but I just...can't get over some of them. I want a beautiful adaption of whatever fairytale, LOL. I understand!


    Ah, but it kind of bothers me! I used to be so easy to please. ;) There are so many amazing books I could be reading, though!

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  8. Oh, me too! I just thought this one looked good, so... *shrug* I'm not sure that you'll miss anything... I don't think that I missed anything? But I can't really be sure, you know... I probably won't read the rest of this series now. :/


    It kind of would - hopefully. Ah, I hope that option two is the winner. Even if I like it less, maybe I'll retain those good memories of it. That seems a good option. It's all good - you can't help what you love, right? (I didn't mean to, but it was kind of funny. LOL.)


    I'm sorry. :/ I hate when I just don't have anything to say about a book - it doesn't happen very often, but I can remember a few instances where it has. :/

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  9. I know what you mean LOL the cover is pretty, and the story sounds great! (have you seen this about the book, though? I found it really interesting.)


    That bad, Mags? :/


    I think that's what would happen :) Either way, I'm very excited to hear your re-opinion!


    I'm doing Mini Reviews for these books. Otherwise the blog would be naked of reviews, and we don't want that. Plus, I really want to be able to share the general feel I had if the books.
    And I think me having nothing to say might have something to do with my mood, and also with the fact I specifically chose the kind of mindless reads I could just get sucked to for a few hours then move on from. Did I make any sense?

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  10. Haha, yes I have seen that. I find it oddly interesting too - and awkwardly true. It's not cool to do stuff like that, if you happen to actually be doing it on purpose. o.O


    Not really that bad, I just don't feel like going through the subpar-ness of this series for that long. It's just not worth it to me.


    Hee hee. Okay. Next book I'll read, I swear! :D


    I know exactly what you mean. I hope that it's easy for you to write the mini-reviews! You made absolute sense. I understood it, at least. I tend to choose mindless books when I'm in a certain mood too. It's usually depressed - if I'm depressed, I read all my fluffy books. <3

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