young adult, fantasy
This is a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, one of the Grimm's Fairy Tales. Serilda is a young
woman living with her father, the miller. She is always spinning stories. Due
to these fantasies, as well as her odd eyes which were marked with a gold
spinning wheel by a god upon her birth, the adults in town don’t trust her. The
children, however, adore her stories. Eventually, one of her lies gets her into
trouble. Serilda catches the attention of the evil Erlking by saying she can
spin straw into gold and he brings her to his castle to see if she really can
do as she claims.
I have really enjoyed Marissa Meyer’s retellings in the past. However, this one got off to a slow start and then ended too soon. It was set in the distant past instead of in the future (like her other retellings) and, therefore, didn’t feel like something new at first. It felt like a genuine old fairy tale—and not a particularly interesting one in the first half. Meyer often pulled us out of the main storyline by inserting the tales Serilda was telling. I know this is my problem, but I have trouble staying interested when authors insert tangential stories into a novel. It always feels like a detour, a distraction, a time waster, and it ruins the momentum of the novel for me. If I wanted to enjoy multiple short stories, I’d read a book of short stories. In a novel, I want everything to tie back to the central tale(s). As it turns out, Serilda’s stories served a purpose but they had still soured my opinion due to their length and number, and the narration (see below) did not help matters. Plus, many segments of Serilda’s internal discourse were slow and repetitive. I kept thinking, “Get on with it! I get it! Move on!”
Also, much of the story was really horrific but is told in
the tone and pace of a children’s tale. Yes, fairy tales tend to be horrific
and are aimed at children but they are short in length. This one had trouble
combining the children’s focus with the newer, more interesting story Meyer was
trying to build into a full-length novel. I admired her creativity yet kept
feeling it drag and stutter. The novel seemed to push and pull at itself,
fixating on trivial things and then speeding through more interesting things.
I’m really sad that I haven’t loved the last two novels by
Meyer that I’ve read. I adored all of
her earlier novels so much! This one ended just when things were getting
interesting (yet unfinished because there is a sequel coming) but I doubt I’ll
read the next installment unless it gets amazing reviews. This one tried my
patience too much.
I do feel that the audiobook narration added to my frustration with this novel. This is the fourth novel I’ve heard that was narrated by Rebecca Soler. I really enjoyed her in two of them and really didn’t in this one and one other. She read Gilded in a really overdramatic way. And in those sections where we were listening to Serilda tell someone a story, I was rolling my eyes. It was as if she were one of those over-the-top storytellers, like a traveling magician trying to make everything seem so important and wondrous to little children. She did display a nice repertoire of voices but I didn’t like the way this one was acted. I, therefore, have to give her a C+. I feel the audio narration was a detriment to my enjoyment of this novel. I think I would have liked it more without her hokey delivery (and probably would’ve skimmed through most of Serilda’s tales).
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