Winterspell

Here's a little bit of trivia about me that many people don't know - I took ballet for six years when I was in middle/high school. I know that's not a particularly astounding fact, but my point is I got the opportunity to perform in the Nutcracker twice in those six years. I love the Nutcracker. The music still remains one of my favorite compositions to date. Dancing on stage with the lavish backdrops and beautiful costumes that the production requires is nothing short of magical.Winterspell follows in that magical vein, but ups the ante by 1000%.At its heart, this book is about two women who don't fully belong anywhere, but in an ironic twist have the power to alter the course of the world. I think it's a concept that many young girls can relate to (except the whole... alter the world part). Clara Stole has grown up her whole life wearing a mask, being forced into a diminutive role in her society and feeling so worthless and weak and helpless with little to no outlet. It's something I could relate to instantly, having been bullied in school. While bullying in 1899 is significantly different from now, the emotions are the same. And that relatibility made it so easy for me to follow her narrative, to feel it with her.Like Clara, Anise was born into an oppressive world, but Anise went a different route. She seized power and took everything from those who would have done the same to her. Clara couldn't be more different than Anise, and yet they share a stigmata that defines the future of Cane. One of the things I found interesting about this book was seeing how differently Clara and Anise dealt with their shared burdens.All that being said, a Nutcracker retelling would be nothing without its Prince. But, in true Legrand fashion, he's a Prince with a twist. I have a soft spot for flawed princes, so it comes as no surprise that I fell for Nicholas hard. He's passionate and loyal, he listens and cares, and he's pretty much everything a girl could want, and yet through the narrative Nicholas demonstrated how those "ideal qualities" aren't necessarily ideal, and that in a war, much like life, you have to choose sides. What do you believe in? What would you die for? Is there something more important than the love you hold for one person?To top it all off, Claire Legrand brought her own style of beautiful prose to a whole new level and completely blew me away. The way she weaves words to form full bodied characters and worlds is pure beauty and genius. Cane is a war-ravaged land, the people are suffering - this is real stuff! And it FEELS real while reading. Hands get dirty, blood is shed. And love is shared, dreams are awakened.There are few books that I have encountered as purely enchanting as Winterspell. I wholeheartedly and enthusiastically recommend this book to all who wish to be transported to a world of magic and mayhem and romance and enthrallment.

Review:I was extremely excited for this book due to The Nutcracker being my ultimate favourite ballet and it would be intriguing to see a YA version of this gorgeous and magical tale. I was expecting light, charming, sweet and something more similar to children’s literature, but I got a grim, gritty and quite a shocking story with the tone being more similar to a New Adult book. And, to be honest, I don’t even know if I entirely liked this surprising outcome, but there was something compelling about this steampunk version of it.What I liked:The magical world of Cane and its fate was overall obviously dark, ugly and quite descriptive: all the experiments, “drug” addictions, almost-prostitution, torture, voyeurism, oft nakedness, graphic description of dead bodies, slaves, girl on girl kissing, appalling treatment of particular groups of residents (eg. humans, mages), etc – all presented and shown in a not so nice way, far from it. While it was something I needed get used to, in the end, I quite liked this take on this wold. If you like kinky fairy-tale-like YA then this story is 100% for you!There was a multitude of icky, creepy and despicable characters you simply had to hate and when I say despicable then I really mean very devious. I was definitely not indifferent towards them and that’s a good thing. I liked that it wasn’t strongly based on the original and took heaps of inspiration, but not all details and it wasn’t a retelling. Also, the pace of the book was great, there was never a boring moment, all the time something was happening and the story moved with speed.The world-building was phenomenal: detailed, twistedly gorgeous and lifelike/realistic. And as I mentioned, the story didn’t only highlight the good, but also the wicked and evil side of both these two worlds/cities - Concordia and Cane. Thus, it was considerably more believable.I liked that Nicholas wasn’t entirely a good guy, he had a lot of grey area, did some selfish things, was somewhat deceitful and didn’t always act as a gentleman should. I wish there would have been more insight into his mind.Drosselmeyer was just as creepy as I’ve always seen him as – great! Full stop.What I didn’t like:Clara was simply so unfortunate and in a constant position where I felt sympathy for her or with a mentality that everything was her fault or that she had to take responsibility – her martyr routine was kind of tiring. She had all this power, but she still came across weak and slightly pathetic to me. I understand that she was clearly in a sticky position, but I felt more for Nicholas and the poor residents of Cane.My personal complaint (slightly spoilery): I’m starting to get tired of these special snowflake heroines. I mean, come on, again a girl who discovers there is more to her than visible and, naturally, she end up being the top of the food chain or something like that. Everyone will fall short in competing with her power and her most important asset – the power of the heroine. This trope is awesome when done right, but when you don’t even particularly like the heroine then it can become bothersome.Oh my, how I couldn’t stand Clara’s annoying no-good father, well at least in the state he was presented during this story.Overall:A very morbid, sexual and adult take on the beloved ballet Nutcracker. And although, I had serious issues with the heroine, I was still intrigued and impressed by the direction and tone of the story. It was certainly quite imaginative and very well written.

This book was rather hard to rate, because there is a lot to like about this story and yet there were some problems with the characters that nearly ruined the whole book for me."The Nutcracker" isn't one of the fairy tales that is retold very often, at least I never came upon a retelling until now. And the world-building here is marvelous: it's the story of young woman Clara Stole, who lives in 19th century NY city with her widowed father, her little sister and her mysterious "Godfather" tinkering in his strange shop. NY is slightly steampunkish, for Clara gets trained to fight by Godfather, wears trousers and knives under her dresses, and in Godfather's shop there are automaton-like creatures and stuff. But it was all really marginal and not a part of everyones daily life.A hard reality in Clara's NY is the mob-like organization "Concordia" that rules the city and uses her father as a figurehead mayor. The members of this organization are also whom Clara suspects of her mother's gruesome murder and the scary Dr. Victor, a "Concordia"-member and a real pervert, is after Clara. As wife. All of that combined, Clara's life is not desirable at all, her outlook on any version of a future more than bleak.But the real magic hits when creatures from another world, the magical "Cane", come hunting her and Godfather and a strange statue from Godfather's shop turns out to be a cursed prince from said Cane. When they take her father to lure her to Cane, she sees no other way but to pursue them. And there in Cane, a cruel queen, half human half faery has taken the throne. And humans are nothing but slaves anymore, treated badly. The "Cane" parts of the book were fabulous. This is one of the most intriguing worlds, I've ever read about. First of all, I was stunned that there wasn't a "The Shire"-like world, but something more out of a nightmare. Think "Bladerunner" or Julie Kagawa's "Iron King". Greatly done!Besides the astonishing world of Cane and the rich history spun around it and backing it up, the overall story arc is gripping. It's obvious pretty soon that there are a great many secrets and things are not at all what they seem. And people aren't as well. It's hard to decide whom to trust and how far, since there is not a clear cut "Black and White", the enslaved humans are piteous, but then it gets clearer and clearer that the humans weren't any better, when they ruled. This I appreciated as well: no easy way out, because there isn't a definite "side of good".So there are a great many really good aspects in the book, and the second half was so captivating, I couldn't stop reading. But I had real problems with Clara's character in the first half: she is trained to fight, wears covert trousers and knives, has the un-ladylike hots for a statue, yet every time she encounters Dr. Victor or any other member of "Concordia", she becomes this shivering, sniveling and overly meek girl. And not just for show, but she is stunned to the bone. As if she were a lost ten year old. And coming with that, are her "I deserve all the bad, the pain, the hurt, because it's all my fault!"-moments, when it's clear that she is a victim and normally has a brain working well enough to tell her so.And all that just doesn't make a consistent character - there is the personal growth a protagonist can experience, but here it's not that. It rather feels like two persons or a serious bipolar disorder or something. And I detest it, if a heroine is betrayed and horribly so and still clings to the people who did that to her. Clara doesn't act on it, so that mollified me somewhat, but she thinks it time and again with more than one person betraying her. That, too, didn't fit with her pragmatic and crafty character.She overcomes that and when she does in the second half, she is a great heroine to read about. But it really takes time. Another bummer was the prince, who is no prize and a relationship, I did not feel, no matter how I was told it exists.So yes, these flaws were bad enough for me to nearly stop reading after about a third of the book, but in the end, I'm glad I kept going on. The second half of the story did merit that. If you like dark fairy tales and can overlook flawed characters for an exceptional story and world-building, this story is for you.

I would give this book 4.5 stars rather than 4! I'll be honest with you all, I went into this book with a large amount of apprehension. I had been so looking forward to getting into it, then made the awful mistake of reading some reviews before starting. I was greeted by a huge volume of bad ones, and felt completely disheartened at some of the complaints. Let that be a lesson to me! I thoroughly enjoyed this book and am so glad I stuck with it. Clara was a great heroine (okay, so she had a few strange moments but she wasn't the total sex pest I was led to believe she would be). In fact I found her to be clever, strong and likeable. Exactly what I was after! I loved the characters that surrounded her too: Bo was so wonderfully Artful Dodgeresque that I smiled everytime she spoke, Nicholas was every bit the perfect match for Clara and Drosselmeyer managed to irk me, yet gain my support at the same time. More than that, Anise was a fantastic villain because she was every bit as complex as I wanted her to be! I'm not very well informed on the story of the Nutcracker but this fantastical world of Faeries, giant rat-like beasts, snow and metal creations that I couldn't even begin to dream up certainly caught my imagination! This is a great adaption of a pretty well known tale! Though I freely admit that I didn't get on overly well with the beginning (the plot confused me at times) Legrand's skill really comes into it's own as the book progresses. I thoroughly recommend giving this book a try!