My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Actual Rating: 3.75
*Thank you to the author for providing a free e-copy in exchange for an honest review*
I’ve always loved fairy tale retellings, and I jumped at the chance to read this novella. Project Snow takes place in a world plagued by infection. The only cure? Genetic engineering. When Amara turns sixteen, she will officially be considered immune, able to leave the Tower where she’s been confined her entire life. But things aren’t that simple. Not when the queen has her own plans, plans to cut out Amara’s heart to replace her own.
One word that immediately comes to mind after reading this book is “potential”. This book has so much of it, and I can’t but wonder what it would be like if this was fleshed out into a full novel. With that said, I’ll add that the pace of this book was fast. Like, really fast. The story jumps right in, and it speedily moves along, vaguely following the plot of “Snow White”. Because everything was so compacted, the story was action-packed and wild the entire way through.
But for the same reason, I feel like I didn’t quite get adequate time to get to know the characters. We follow the main character’s emotional ups and downs, and it’s easy to see how she could be overwhelmed, but I feel as though a more solid idea of her personality would help readers further understand the main character’s relationship with the people around her. We saw a glimpse of this through Amara’s conversations with her sisters, but I would love to see more.
One strength that I immediately noticed about this book was the powerful writing style. It was fluent and engaging, and as a sucker for heart-wrenching descriptions and memorable quotes, I was pulled right in.
I’ll end my review with this: I absolutely loved the ending. It was the type of ending that left me speechless, then made me want to hurl the book across the room, then left me sitting in the same spot for hours, wondering.
I love those endings.
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