Ash & Bramble: A Captivating Young Adult Cinderella Retelling - Swords, Not Slippers

Ash & Bramble #1

by Sarah Prineas

"A delightful deconstruction of society’s fairy tale myth, wrapped in an exquisite, spellbinding adventure. A must-read for teens who yearn to forge their very own story." — Rae Carson, author of the bestselling Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy The tale of Cinderella has been retold countless times. But what you know is not the true story. Sarah Prineas’s bold fairy-tale retelling is a dark and captivating world where swords are more fitting than slippers, young shoemakers are just as striking as princes, and a heroine is more than ready to rescue herself before the clock strikes midnight. Pin has no recollection of who she is or how she got to the Godmother’s fortress. She only knows that she is a Seamstress, working day in and out to make ball gowns fit for fairy tales. But she longs to forsake her backbreaking servitude and dares to escape with the brave young Shoemaker. Pin isn’t free for long before she’s captured again and forced to live the new life the Godmother chooses for her—a fairy-tale story, complete with a charming prince—instead of finding her own happily ever after. As Pin tries to fight her arranged path, she finds that a sword is a much better fit for her than a glass slipper, and that the boy who she escaped with is still searching for her, and won’t stop until he rescues her—if Pin doesn’t rescue herself first.

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Retellings, Fairy Tales, Romance, Fiction, Young Adult Fantasy

480 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2015

About the author

Coming in April 2021 from Philomel, Trouble in the Stars! It's a middle grade science fiction adventure about a shapeshifter kid.

And Dragonfell is out in paperback in April 2020.

Happy reading!

My website: www.sarah-prineas.com

Reviews

[Ai Haibara]

UPDATE 19/2/15
*Sees cover*







Aside from the fact that red is soooo not a Cinderella colour, why the fuck is there a girl on the cover with the most fucking generic looking red dress ever. What the hell happened to creativity?!

And can we talk about the proportions of the model?





The wonders of photoshop. Seriously though, someone needs to fire who ever did the cover because aside from the terrible proportions edit, the cover looks amateur as fuck. And this is being published by HarperTeen.

I almost forgot- GOLD SHOES?

GOLD SHOES WITH FUCKING CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN RED SOLES?!





-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A prince.


A ball.


A glass slipper left behind at the stroke of midnight.




The tale is told and retold, twisted and tweaked, snipped and stitched, as it leads to happily ever after.



But it is not the true Story.



A dark fortress.



A past forgotten.
A life of servitude.


No one has ever broken free of the Godmother’s terrible stone prison until a girl named Pin attempts a breathless, daring escape.

Fairy Godmother is EVIL?



But she discovers that what seems like freedom is a prison of another kind, one that entangles Pin in a story that leads to a prince, a kiss, and a clock striking midnight.



To unravel herself from this new life, Pin must choose between her prince and another—the one who helped her before and who would give his life for her.



Torn, the only thing for her to do is trade in the glass slipper for a sword and find her own destiny.

[shady boots]

Seriously, this is a HarperTeen book and the best they could do was that cover? Christ, Harper, what happened? You guys are usually the king of gorgeous covers. That is a hot mess and a half.

[Sarah Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was such a strange book, and I didn’t really enjoy it. I found the story quite confusing as so little was explained, and I got really bored.



5 out of 10

[Tamara · Rating 2 out of 5]

1,5 STARS

The Number of UGHs:

1. The names (A seamstress named Pin? A shoemaker named Shoe? WHAT THE F-? I cant take a character called Shoe seriously, ok?

2. The whole plot

3. The execution (Wonderful idea used so poorly)

4. The writing and the dual povs The writing was so plain and how it switched between first and third person at the worst times bothered me a lot)

5. The pacing (the dual povs hurt the story so much. Whenever things started to get a bit interesting in Pin's pov, the scene was cut and Shoe's boring and useless pov was shoved down our throats)

6. The characters (They had no depth or any REAL characteristics)

7. The insta-love (one word: HIDEOUS!!! If you need a textbook definition of instalove definitely read the very first chapters of this one) and the cringe-worthy/half-hearted love triangle

8. (NO)(PROPER) worlbuilding (It has massive holes)

9. Things are ALWAYS too convenient

10. PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING ELSE...


Why You Should Give It A Chance:

1. Interesting premise.

The main characters live in a world where the Godmother is evil and kidnapps people, erases their memories and uses them to make 'the story' more powerful.

Every person that comes across to Godmother is caught in an inevitable scene, intent on acting his/her parts in service to the story. Some act their part in the cities, being muppets in the hands of the Godmother, others work in the Godmother's Forstress like slaves, barely eating or getting any sleep, not speaking, not touching, not loving, doing nothing else but working so that Godmother gets things like candles, dresses and even a glass slipper to use in the stories and happy endings she builds.

Our main characters Pin and Shoe are both slaves in the Forstress. They escape but Pin gets captured by the Godmother and gets her memory erased so that Godmother can force her into a happy ending to make the story more powerful. Shoe decides to save her (but ends up being a big cock-blocker *ahem* I mean storybreaker. Whatever). At one point the prince show up, there is a ball, a love triangle, confusion and Pin trying to find out who she is and who she loves the most, there is a big fight, our heroes win but there is also redemption for the bad characters and...I think I've said enough.

2. Umm, that's it. I've got nothing else to sell this book.


Why You Probably Should Stay Away From This Book:

1. BO-RING. After Pin loses her memories the plots gets more interesting but man, getting there was so painful.

2. Because I'm telling you. Cause I like you (If I dont hey, you can read the book. I'm totally ok if you want to share my pain.)

3. May cause a severe reading slump.

4. I cant even make fun of this book. Or rant. In a fun way. Cause you know, I didnt have fun. At all. NADA FUN HERE.


The Additional Thoughts:

- I want a magical thimble too. It makes everything possible. *rolls eyes*

- #notbuyingthisshit. SO MANY 'LOGIC FAILS' MOMENTS! For example; oh, sure, lets trust the villian guy because he seems kind. Gentle. Yeah who cares that he was hunting you like 5 seconds ago? He just offered you help to escape so he must be one of the good guys, right?

- Cinderella part only begins to show itself at the end of the chapter 9. Are you fucking kidding me? This story/book was too damn boring.

- Most of the time too much description but when it's necessary you cant find a proper one.

- Godmother is interesting. She ripps out people from their old lives and gives them a role in whatever elaborate plan she has for that place but WHY THE FUCK SHE DOES THAT? EXPLAIN TO ME WTF SHE DOES THAT DAMN IT!!

- There are times Pin is a strong character and she doesnt let her choices be taken away from her BUT her badassness and feminist moments felt like they were way too forced. So instead of making her a cool character they turned her into a annoying one.

-

''The story gains power by forcing these endings. Happily after endings. Boring endings. They are all the same.''

Umm, honey that's the point with the fairytales. That's why we like them. Shut your fucking mouth and stop talking nonse.

***

THE GİF REVİEW:

ME DURING THIS BOOK




***

THE VERDICT: Read Cinder instead if you havent already.

[Susana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Arc provided by Harper Teen through Edelweiss

Release Date: September 15 th


Part of me can't help wonder how much I would have _ or not _ enjoyed this title if I wasn't reviewing it.

Thing is, reading for reviewing purpose is different from reading for enjoyment: I find myself constantly trying to analyse this and that, without mentioning the fact that I am constantly evaluating which rating I should give.

Then there's the second guessing myself, especially in cases such as this, in which the story's quality is unquestionable.

Yes, this definitely has quality and has to have had a lot of hard work behind it: the plot twists, basically being able to interwove a great number of retellings into a cohesive plot has to have taken a lot of hard effort. And it isn't as if this is a simple story. It most definitely isn't.

But, I can't say that as a whole it was perfect.

The pace of the story

For me this was the main culprit: one minute I was wondering what was going to happen next, and a couple pages later, the story had stalled. And I was bored.

But then it would pick up again until too many descriptions would stall it once again.


The main character

I am afraid she starts and ends as a mystery, and if at the beginning that is completely understandable, I can't say I was happy about it...

No, that isn't right. It isn't the case of me being happy or not _ don't worry, the story has a perfectly acceptable finale _ it was the vagueness of it all that left me unsatisfied.

The story took so long to get there, to the beginning of a new start that I wanted a little more . I wanted to have a little idea of what was it than Pin wanted for her life.

Also _maybe that was the author's idea _ but I could never really fit Pin into some sort of "role". Okay, she's fierce, but also a little reckless, while keeping hold of a certain aloofness all around her.

She wants to be her own self, that's probably what best characterizes her in the end.
However besides that, I could never establish a connection with the girl: what should come out as strength of character sometimes sounded to me more like selfishness and reckless behaviour.

Also I ended up disliking the way the love triangle _ that shouldn't be a love triangle _ was dealt. Thing is, were Pin a guy, the cavalier way she deals with "certain things" would be less than tolerated.

In face of all this, it comes as no surprise that my favourite character ended up being Shoe. He ended feeling more complete and with more depth than Pen.

The fact that he reminds me of Peeta with his quiet way of being ( not that it matters, but yes he has blond hair) is another point in his favour.

In here, you'll find stories within stories... do not expect a basic Cinderella retelling.

If any of you has already read Mercedes Lackey, The Fairy Godmother, book one in the Five Hundred Kingdoms you must be aware of the concept of a Story _ in Lackey's that concept goes by Tradition _ that forces characters into certain roles. Fairy tale roles. Sometimes things work out... most times they don't.

This is a dark take on a concept of a Story, determined to feed itself and to find strength in its constant never ending circle.

I loved that the author introduced some great plot twists that go against what we normally get in these type of stories: from the Godmother's role, to the evil Witch's role, to characters that are given a whole new direction like a lesbian couple whose half of it is a very well known princess.

That was great. Things like these would get a five star rating.

But then _like I mentioned before_ we would start getting a little too much description on certain moments, and not enough on others: it was driving me insane!

This was what was going through my head while reading this tale:

"okay... 4.5 stars... no, 4 stars...maybe 3.5...this last part is boring 3stars... but this should get at least a four... but are you enjoying it... do you think you're going to re-read it... 3.5 stars maybe... oh, God how am I going to review this?"

I wanted to know more about the thimble: well the thimbles, plural.
Why did they have power? Where did it came from? Why a thimble from all objects?

I wanted more information on the sisters. Not to mention details about how Pin's life used to be.

I didn't find logical that... how to say this without spoilers... there was someone that maybe could have shed some light on Pin's background, and she has that "attitude"?
And then she "throws the problem" at someone else?
o_O

Also, wouldn't that, place her in the same path of that... *cough* person?

Finishing a story and having more questions than answers is never a good thing.

To finish this mess of a review I can only say that I don't know if you're going to enjoy it.
The only thing I can say is that it does have quality.

Oh, and the cover girl with the red dress?
Well, there's a perfectly good reason for the colour red :D

For the modern cut of the dress?
No. -_-

For the blankness of what surrounds the girl?
Okay, it can be comprehensible due to "things"....although I would prefer to see a certain lighted path of the mushrooms in the cover ;)

"Who am I? I am nothing."(1)


(1)quote removed from arc ~don't kill me, it is just a tiny little sentence~ and prone to changes.

[cc]

wait... is this a love triangle...?

[Brandi · Rating 2 out of 5]

**** Any quotations used are subject to change by final print – this review is based on the ARC ****

I think I need to let go of the fact that there’s a retelling out there I could love.

Ash & Bramble is a Cinderella retelling and the best thing I can say about it is that is worlds better than Cinder was for me. I’m not rating this high (it’s just ok for me) but I think if you’re someone that enjoys retellings, and likes a dark twist to them, you will probably love this book.

The story is told through two perspectives, and Pen’s is first person present tense which is my favorite, but then the other perspective changes to third person present tense, and it’s not done all that terribly, but it wasn’t my favorite way to read a story.

This book is about the wicked Godmother and the Story that controls more than a city’s worth of people. It starts out nice and dark (I have some quotes to follow) and I was so hopeful that this would be The One for me, but alas, the girl was meant to be some hardcore badass and I just found her tiring.

Looming over us is a fortress dark as a storm cloud; a clock set in its tallest square tower watches grimly over all. Around the courtyard is a high, bramble-covered wall. In the middle is a wooden post with chains and manacles hanging from it.

Maybe it is safer in this gray fortress to hide your essential self deep within, where no one else can see it.

Not quite enough food, not nearly enough sleep, a little exercise, and punishments now and then to keep us from getting too dull.

We cannot live long, I think, in service to the Godmother.

YES, GIVE ME MOAR! I love darkness in stories, they’re so much harder to pull off and are so much more intense than bubblegum filler – which has a time and place and can be just as satisfying, but typically I’m after dark and painful.

I’m totally normal, I swear.

There are feminist messages in here but I was never fully behind them – they were a bit too forced for me. Our main girl, Pen, makes it plain – over and over and over – that she will be the master of her own life and won’t be thrust into a relationship against her will. This is a message I would totally get behind if I didn’t find her so annoying more often than not.

I’m going to get into the things that brought me down so DO NOT READ them if you don’t want to be spoiled. I’ll keep it as vague as I can, but if you read it don’t get pissed at me if it gives something away – you’ve been warned.

These are in no particular order. She’s on the run and starts a fire – then lights a candle, using said fire, so she can see. Because firelight in her tiny little hideout was clearly not enough.

She coils her pieced together silk rope (to which I had trouble believing her ability have made in the first place considering how on top of them the overseer was, but whatever) around her waist under her dress – and shift she says, but they are stripped naked in the morning and the evening and doused with lice shampoo and cold water dumped and thrown on them. How did she manage to “coil” it around her body in the setting she was in – the overseer would have noticed her shimmying that crap around her waist. And I point out her shift in that sentence because she didn’t have a shift before that, only the coarse undyed woolen dress.

She says, “she thinks things have to be a certain way, and I know they don’t.” This is another one of those moments where I felt her badassness was being way too forced.

Someone in the story says, “We can’t keep quiet any longer. It is time to act.” Why? Because two teenagers think they’re in love you’re going to throw away x-years worth of hiding? #notbuyingit

In this same vein at one point one of our main boys tells a spy, one who had by all accounts been working in his role for quite some time, how to handle his job. Just, no, stop it. He does that shit two or three times.

Then at another point the boy tells someone about these people that are apparently leaders of the rebels but at no point did I see why he would just assume that. He wasn’t told by them, they didn’t have meetings, there was nothing to suggest to me that these people were leaders, but he was completely certain of it.

The prince captures the other boy and then after they spend the night talking about Pen all of sudden they’re acting like besties. The next morning Shoe is calling the prince by his nickname – instabros.

How about how perfectly capable of fighting our girl suddenly became the moment she got her hands on a weapon? Love when they’re spechulness leaches out.

She discovers her thimble can bring back memories after one of the boys points it out, and what was funny to me about this was she had a similar thought not even a couple of pages prior, but as soon as he said it she was like, oh wow, great idea! Siiiiiiigh. Then she doesn’t use the damn thing on herself to see if it would help her. She then says how Cor already knew most of his before so it wasn’t really a risk to give him his memories back but again, how dafuq does she assume he knew most of his Before?

All this time I hadn’t really cared that the passage of time wasn’t explicitly marked because the story is good enough to pull that off, but then later one of the boys gives his specific age of when he was taken and says how he’d been a slave for a really long time. I don’t know how he knew how long he’d been a slave. Pen never knew how long she was there while she was a seamstress. Then, later, we’re told the number of years that had passed and I realized it’s the first time I knew what age bracket they were.

In another scene there’s a big battle and Pen is being all hardcore badass and saving the day when she’s needed to rally other slaves – because, of course. So she leaves the battle and then enters the castle where she stops, catches her breath, and stomps the snow off her boots. Because who cares about her friends that are outnumbered amiright?

And holy mother of gawd – each and every single time Cor, or anyone, mentions his mother they make sure to add “the queen” after. I’m telling you the truth – every, fucking, time. Totally goddamn unnecessary.

Now the ending kind of confused me because Pen decides, finally, what boy she loves and yet (and again, I think this is supposed to make me cheer since I’m a feminist) and had left him while he recovered from the climax of the story. So, she eventually comes back and the boy says how he didn’t know if she would, she agrees, then she says she won’t be a wife and there are no happily-ever-afters, and then tells him true love is what they feel when they kiss. Now, the kissing and feeling part I can get behind, it’s the rest that I was like, whuh? Although I guess it fits with her anarchist views that the marriage institution is a sham and puts too many constraints on her (she must be familiar with Emma Goldman's "Marriage and Love," LOOOOL).

Jeez, I have a long list of things that got on my nerves or didn’t make sense to me. I’m (hopefully) coming out of a wicked slump that’s lasted pretty much the entire year so far – ugh, and this book was readable enough for me to finish it, which is great.

I do think it’s a much better version for a retelling than the one I’d read in the past (cue my hate of Cinder) and I’m confident that it will be a hit for those that enjoy books like this. It’s clever, it’s different, it offers action, adventure, love, conflict, and at its heart it’s about being able to choose your own path.

As for me? I'm giving up on retellings.

[Mlpmom (Book Reviewer) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not going to lie, what drew me first to this novel was the unusual cover. It caught my eye and demanded that I read the synopsis. When I saw that it was a retelling, and a dark one at that, I knew this would be the read for me.

What if the real villain of the story wasn't the Witch but the Godmother instead? What if we never got to choose our own endings, happy or not, but they were chosen for us? Forced onto us by a sinister power that has grown too strong over time? What if everything we thought we knew about happily ever after was all a lie?

I admit, I didn't go into this expecting to be caught up in the story, caught up in Pin and Shoe, but I was. Oh how I was.

Prineas wove a tale so enchanting, so original, and so far from the original that it was hard not to be memorized by it. Not to be caught up in the madness, chaos, and utter unreliability of the tales we have all come to love as small children as they were read to us from storybooks and watched in movies as she twisted them, made them dark and sinister and anything but those we fell in love with.

With a heroine every bit as smart, cunning and strong, as she is unwilling to depend on anyone else to save her but herself. To create her own story, with its own ending. An ending she chooses, one she creates for herself. One where she is the hero, not the prince, not the king, not the Godmother.

This truly was unlike anything I have read before and I loved and savored every single page of it. I truly was hooked after only a few chapters and even now, after finishing it, I am still thinking about the genius behind it. The what ifs and the could have beens.

This took me by surprise and I love Prineas for being able to still surprise me when it comes to this genre, and this retelling. Where magic is afoot and anything is possible, even darkness and misery in a much beloved fairy tale that is anything but happy and cheerful.


*An ARC Copy of this was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.*

[Vilma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sinister, suspenseful and spellbinding—Prineas re-imagines the much-loved story of Cinderella in a way that made it impossible to stop reading.

Sarah Prineas weaves a story blurred by magic and fate, shackled by happy ever afters. She deconstructs the well-known story of Cinderella, unexpectedly twisting elements and forging them with recognizable facets of other fairy tales. The result is an imaginative, sinister and suspenseful tale which is somewhat ironical, but entirely enchanting.

A dress as bright as a flame, a glass slipper expertly crafted, a ticking clock, a godmother, a prince, a seamstress and a shoemaker. Blood and sweat, servitude and solitude, fate and free will. All these things tumble together as the story ‘begins’ with a girl, hair savagely shorn, forced to work day and night as a seamstress. She has no other memories. Hunched over yards of silk, stitching together gowns fit for a princess, Pin works for the Godmother. She lives a life of servitude with many others, in a fortress surrounded by bramble-covered walls.

“We are a line of gray-faced, gray-dressed, bony clockwork females. It’s as if the individual part of each of the other has been stripped out, leaving behind only their skills. I was Nothing. And then I was Seamstress, like them, but … I have a secret, a secret, a silver thimble hidden in my apron pocket.”

After witnessing brutal punishment and enduring the same hungry, brutal days without end, a plan flickers to life. Pin meets Shoe (a shoemaker) and in a desperate attempt to flee and seek what’s beyond, they escape… aided by unexplained magic in a thimble.

But just as sparks burn into flames of hope, Pin is captured again, forced to live in a story we know all too well… but this time, the Godmother’s plans are not exactly what we think.

“All I know is that she wants me for something, and I cannot let her have me.”

The Cinderella story we know is re-imagined, as the race to understand the truth begins. Shoe must free Pin from her fate, even as they are hunted through the woods, joined by allies from other fractured fairy tales.

I loved the story—an ingenious twist on what we hold dear. I loved the darker, more suspenseful tone and the exploration of what a story is and could be. If you’re a fan of fantasy and re-tellings, this is one you shouldn’t miss.

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

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[Christina (A Reader of Fictions)]

Pages read: 83

*sighs*

I was so excited for Ash & Bramble. All of Sarah Prineas' books have sounded like Christina books, and HELLO I AM HERE FOR ALL THE FAIRY TALE RETELLINGS.

The thing is that fairy tale retellings tend to either be amazing or womp womp. This one's a womp womp for me.

I just don't care about the characters who are, for plot reasons, without memories, so they're pretty much blank slates. They're cardboard to the max. Also, they go by Pin (because she's a seamstress) and Shoe (because he's a shoemaker), which I just can't take seriously.

It sounds like the book might get better later on but I am so bored and I have so many books to read.

[Nemo (The ☾Moonlight☾ Library) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review was originally posted on The Moonlight Library
I received this book for free from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

SUMMARY

When Pin dares to escape her slavery of making fairytale clothing for a magical Godmother, she and her Shoemaker friend are captured and catapulted into an irresistible world where the prince is having a ball and no one recalls their past. This original Cinderella retelling has more twists than you can shake a bramble at as Pin and Shoe dare to tackle the very power that turns over a story, and a young girl demands to choose her own destiny.

WORLDBUILDING

Wowser. I loved this world. It’s already set in a fantasy-type world, but for some reason there’s this Story power that forces people to live the lives of fairytales, and the Godmother gets her power from that, so it’s this never-ending cycle of growing power so long as everyone does as they’re told. There must have been quite a few fairytales already played out such as Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Rapunzel, but what I really wanted to know was where did Godmother get her inspiration from? How does she know how the stories are supposed to go?

CHARACTERS + RELATIONSHIPS

There is no insta-love and there is no love triangle. Let me make that perfectly clear. It’s a Cinderella retelling, so whatever Pin and the Prince feel for each other is forced upon them, and they’re made aware of that. Pin feels affection early on towards Shoe, but how else are you supposed to become friends with someone? Pin and Shoe are totally lovely anyway. I love their banter, and I love the way they think about each other and care for each other. I love how Shoe and Cor become friends even though they’re kinda rivals. I love how Pin doesn’t have time for silly romances yet finds a way to kiss both of them and thoughtfully compares it – because she knows she’s ‘meant’ to end up with the Prince, but she has real feelings for Shoe. That’s why it’s not a love triangle, even though there is kissing two boys.

WHAT WORKED/DIDN’T WORK

I loved how Pin had this whole life before she was enslaved with a memory wipe, so she was already a badass capable staff fighter, she just didn’t know it. And a lot of her power came from being her mother’s daughter and knowing instinctively how to make the magic thimble work.

Pin dares to live her own life, escapes from the Godmother, plans to run away from the stepmother’s abuse, doesn’t want to go to the ball or meet the prince. She’s not a very good Cinderella, although she can’t resist the lure of the story. I’ve never read a Cinderella retelling where Cinders didn’t want to go to the ball!

I wouldn’t necessarily love a sequel, but I sure as hell would love a prequel. I want to see Faye and Pin’s mother going at it Godmother/bad witch style. OH MY GOD YES. And her grief when she fails Snow White. And how Faye finally defeats her. I’d LOVE to see that! See, I’d love to see a prequel because maybe then we could learn more about Pin and what she was like Before. Since she can’t give her own memories back, she doesn’t know, but I’d love to see this epic showdown between the ice-blue Godmother and the raven-haired witch.

I loved how homosexuality was just casually mentioned. First there was the tavern boy who flirted outrageously with Shoe, then there were casual couples dotted about. No big deal is made about homosexuality but neither is it erased.

OVERALL

I was completely sucked in to this book. I couldn’t believe how quickly I read it, especially as I was coming out of a pretty bad reading slump. Although the cover is somewhat hideous (NOT because the dress is red, it works in context, but because of all the white, which unfortunately also works in context, I just don’t like it – would rather see the more traditional ‘girl in prom dress running through a dark forest’ kind of thing), and the title is completely uninspiring, I thoroughly enjoyed this story about choosing your own destiny and I would recommend it to any fairytale fan who is looking for something a little meta, a little quirky, a little bit different to the more mainstream retellings. The quality of writing is high, the characters are three-dimensional, and there’s enough originality in the retelling to make it its own kind of fairytale.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 Stars *spoilers*

Through this entire story I was thinking about how I was going to rate it. My rating changed so much through the story's ups and downs. Overall this was a very interesting story. The concept is nothing like I have seen before and I was craving more and more of it.

I love that it wasn't a simple retelling of Cinderella even though this is what grabbed my attention in the first place (I love Cinderella retellings). However, it wasn't just about meeting a prince, going to a ball, and returning by midnight, oh no. There is so much more to the story.

The story starts with a Seamstress named...well she has several but let's call her Pin for now. She is trapped working as a seamstress (you guessed it) in the Godmother's Fortress. In this story, the Godmother isn't all perky, kind-hearted, and compassionate. Instead she is controlling, cruel, and has a heart made of ice (not a fact but my suspicion is strong). She is in charge of the Seamstresses, Shoemakers, Jacks, Spinsters, Glassmakers, and all of the others that are involved in creating those iconic pieces of fairytale history. They are not happy workers who whistle while they work but are slaves who do the Godmother's bidding; if they fail, the punishment is worse than a prick on the finger or being trapped in a tower. Pin learns quickly that something is wrong, out of place, like she doesn't really belong there. She plans an escape to see the world outside of the Fortress but needs the helps of her fellow workers, particularly a Shoemaker name Shoe (seriously). Shoe is her co-conspirator and they become something more that just friends (of course). Once they escape, they learn there is something much more devious going on. You will have to read the book to know all of the details but the happily ever after is not at all what it seems to be.

Even though the Godmother is a grand evil manipulator of the story, her boss is the real villain of the story. The Story. Really, it is the stories themselves. People are thrown into the stories and can only follow the path that the Story has set up for them, no choice, no hope for choosing their own paths. An overarching theme of this story is that everyone should be able to choose how to live their own lives and that happily ever after is not always the best choice, nor is it the only.

Pin is smart, quick-witted, tough, and a great main character. Her life is complicated and makes several turns. She gets thrown into her own story, Cinderella's story. She learns quickly that marrying a prince may not be all she wants in life. Shoe is a sweet and strong balance to Pin. When one is weak the other is stronger and vice versa. Cor, the Prince, is so sweet and he isn't so simple-minded to just want to marry the mysterious girl. Instead he actually wants to get to know her which is a nice change.

Fairytale lovers will appreciate the references to other popular fairytales such as Rapunzel, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Princess and the Pea, the Twelve Dancing Sisters and so much more. You can see how those stories were strung together but don't expect an ending where everyone is happy with the path Godmother has chosen for each of them. Then there is the Witch. She is the one who gave the poisoned apple to Snow White and wrapped a castle in thorns which guarded a sleeping princess. She is not the villain but a hero. Someone who wanted to stop Godmother from controlling the lives which needed some severe intervention to stop the not-so-happy ever after.

I think this was a refreshing twist for the fairytales we still know and love. You may feel the need to question some of your favorite fairytales after reading them and wonder if the princess really wanted the prince and vice versa. Don't worry though. There is plenty more to think about while reading this book.

I gave this a 4 instead of 5 stars because there were some parts that were slow and I got a bit confused in certain areas of the story but this is not a story to be missed.

I don't know if this book is for everyone. Fairytale lovers should definitely give this a try. Even if you are not that familiar with fairytales in general, there is still the idea that forcing someone into a life they didn't ask for nor wanted, I think, many people can understand or relate to.

[Heidi Wiechert · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ash & Bramble is a fantasy with various fairytale elements woven into it that fails to coalesce into something greater. There is a forbidding castle on the edge of a dark forest. Within that castle, men and women slave their lives away for the Godmother, a demanding, magical tyrant. One of the seamstresses, a girl named Pin, knows that she has to get out because life isn't meant to be this way. She can't remember her past, but in her pocket, is a magical thimble...

It started out well, but, like I said, just kind of fizzled. The pacing was too slow, the characterizations were just flat, the romance was no good... and the heroine never figured out how to use her powers to their true advantage. I mean, the Godmother had transformed animals into humans and humans into animals and during the epic final battle(s) with her guards, it never occurs to Pin to use her magical thimble for two seconds and change them back? For pete's sake. That was the first thing that popped into my head.

Dark magic is hinted at but never truly explored, which would have been a good way to draw the reader deeper into the story. Take the case of Lord and Lady Meister, two characters who pop into Pin/Pen's life for tea and then are never seen again, I suppose to underline the gravity of her situation. Prineas' description of the Lady was chilling: "I (Pen) can't look away from her smile. Then my breath catches. She is looking at me, too, straight into my eyes. As her husband's voice drones on, her smile doesn't waver. A smile, I realize, is a horrible thing if it's held for too long." pg 182 ebook Creepy! I thought for a moment that this book was going to turn things around, but it didn't.

One small piece of this book that I liked, the author uses power of storytelling as the main antagonist: "What if the stories aren't told? What if they're lived? What if you were forced to live your life in the shape of a story that is not your own, with no choice about who you are and where you're going?" pg 265 That was a cool idea, but not enough to carry the rest of the book.

Finally, this little interchange between the main characters bugged me: "It's because people are afraid." "Of what?" I asked. He shrugged. "Because there's just one ending." "Happily ever after," I said. "No," he said. "Death. Death is the real ending." pg 482 ebook. I've read enough near death experiences to know that death is only the beginning of another grand adventure. There are no "real endings."

If you're looking for a quality fairytale retelling, skip this one. I'd recommend picking up Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson (YA appropriate). Or, if you're looking for an adult fairytale, try Alice by Christina Henry. That one scared me half to death, but it's excellent.

[Sherwood Smith]

Copy provided by publisher.

I really looked forward to this, as I admire Sarah Prineas's work. And it was unusual, totally unpredictable. Hats off to Prineas for trying to explore fairy tales in an unusual way . . . but I'm not quite sure it worked, at least for a reader who expects a bit more glamour and fun in a fairy-tale fantasy.

Pin and Shoe are so ground down, their lives dreary and miserable for a great deal of the book. It's a gritty story, and when we finally find out the central mystery, I wasn't quite sure it paid off. Interesting that Story turns out to be a force of nature rather like Seanan Maguire is exploring in her Indexing series, and a couple other authors have done. I think this idea is working through the Zeitgeist, but I'm not sure it quite works for me, either.

I think it would work for teens who like a darker fantasy with a grim helping of Grimm.

[Jaime (Two Chicks on Books) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written story! I was not a huge fan of the front half of the book I thought it dragged I almost rated this a 3. But I loved the last half of the book that's where all the good stuff is. I didn't really grow too fond of any of the characters though. Maybe The Huntsman, Templeton, and Zel.

[Stacee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I do love a good retelling and since this one seemed a bit darker, I couldn't wait to get my greedy hands on it.

I really liked Pin and Shoe. I loved how all of the fairy tales played into the story and how they all intermingled. I enjoyed the build up in part 1, but the part 2 of the story rally fell flat for me. It seemed to lose a lot of the spark that was needed to keep the story moving. But part 3 had things moving right along again.

Overall, it was a bit slow here and there, but still a fun and creative read. I will definitely read more in the series.

**Huge thanks to Harper Teen and Edelweiss for providing the arc in exchange for an honest review**

[Shannon Miz · Rating 2 out of 5]

This review was originally posted on It Starts at Midnight
I don't really know what to say about Ash & Bramble, which is a big part of why it is getting the mini-review treatment. I had heard that the first half of the book was rather slow, so I went in knowing and expecting it (and it turned out to hold true for me), but I had powered through in the hopes that the book would become more exciting in the second half. And it did, just not enough to make up for the first half.

I liked Shoe and his storyline more than Pin's. I didn't dislike Pin, I just have as much of a connection or reaction to her. Shoe was more likable for me, and he exuded more emotionally. There were a few minor characters that I enjoyed, but the other key characters were a little underdeveloped for my taste.

The story itself was a bit confusing. The beginning, while slow, at least made sense to me. As the plot got more intricate, I started having a lot more questions. Some were answered, but definitely not all. There was a lot of just accepting things at face value, which I am not very good at doing. Had the world building been stronger, I think I'd have taken to the story more.

But, I was definitely invested in Shoe and Pin enough to see how their story would end, so I did keep reading. The last 20% of the book was definitely paced better, and the characters' personalities became more apparent. I still didn't have all my questions answered, but I read that there'll be a companion novel so that might be interesting.

Bottom Line: The characters, especially Shoe, made me want to keep reading. The story was slow at times, confusing at times, but definitely ended strongly. I'd likely give the companion a try when it comes out, so I think that's probably a plus too.

*Copy provided by publisher for review

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I recognize that there are some really interesting ideas explored in Ash & Bramble. But the worldbuilding isn't solid enough to prevent me from asking a lot of questions that I think are vital and unaddressed.

How does the Story world relate to the real world, especially considering characters from the real world are physically kidnapped and brought to another geographic, fairly-close-by location? Who gave the Godmother her magic, and who compelled her to enforce the stories? Pen's "we give stories power" isn't even close to enough of an explanation for the factory, and the city, and the guards. Who picks the stories? Why these stories? Why haven't they been played out before? Why do they need to be actualized? If the Godmother can transform anyone into a tracker, why does she need real seamstresses and princes? How do (some) people have their personalities and talents After, if they've lost their memories?

And - maybe most importantly - how does this relate to the stories people tell? What is this book trying to say? Especially considering the "real world" is just a few miles down the road, the interrelation is awkwardly done.

I think there's a story to tell from the point of view of characters who know they're in a story, but I don't feel that kidnapping "real" characters tells that story.

Also, I don't like love triangles, in any form.

[Joelle (Throne of books) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Have you ever read a book where you're not sure wether you liked the book or not bc same.

[Ashley Bogner]

I'm marking this on as "did not finish" for now. Not because of content, but because I'm really just not in the mood at the moment. I may pick it up again later!

[Elesia · Rating 4 out of 5]

*3.5 stars*

I really enjoyed this retelling even though I did have some issues with it! Despite the issues I still thought this was a very interesting take on the fairytale of Cinderella!

[Dahlia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really fun, subversive look at fairytales, and oh how I appreciated the disdain for the homogeneity of the supposed Happily Ever Afters. So many bonus points for making Rapunzel a hot lesbian. SO MANY.

[Brandy Painter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally posted here at Random Musings of a Bibliophile.

I have established that I love fairy tales and fairy tale retellings. You know what else I love? Books written by Sarah Prineas. Both her MG series are great favorites of mine. When she happened to mention on Twitter long ago that she was working on a YA, I followed closely eager to read whatever the result was. Ash & Bramble is a fabulous work of genius.

(I consider Sarah a friend as well as an author I love, and she sent me the ARC I'm reviewing here.)

Pin lives in the Godmother's fortress sewing clothes with the other seamstresses tasked with producing the beautiful one of a kind ballgowns the Godmother uses for her mysterious purposes. Pin has no memories of her life prior to the day she begins her work as a slave to the Godmother's will. Everything that came before is a blank nothing. While she has no memories, she is still a person with a will and a fierce defiance to live her own life. She gets a chance to plan an escape when she is used as a foot model for the shoemaker tasked with creating a glass slipper. Shoe has learned his lesson. He knows the cost of disobedience to the Godmother. Yet he still finds himself drawn to the daring seamstress and her plans for escape. But escape is not easy. The Godmother is impossible to outrun. Pin finds herself caught up in a whole new type of prison bound by the power of story and the drive for happily ever after. The more she fights, the more she feels trapped in a life that she doesn't want that leads to a prince, a clock at midnight, and a missing shoe. Her only possible means of escape lie in the devotion of a boy willing to risk himself to break her story and her own determination to decide her own destiny.

Ash & Bramble isn't so much a retelling as a complete shaking up and flipping around of the old fairy tales. And I was not exaggerating when I used the word genius, because much of this novel is dystopian in nature. And what world is better set up to be an actual dystopian hellscape than the world of fairy tales? (Really. Think about it.) While I will never get enough of fairy tales, my patience for dystopia is long gone, but the presentation of it here completely worked for me. I can not stress enough how well the two ideas work together and how brilliantly Prineas wove them into one. It's a commentary and celebration of both while also being an engrossing, moving, and satisfying tale in its own right. I really appreciated the way Prineas used the tropes of both types of stories to twist her own dark tale and highlight the themes.

Pin/Pen (she goes by both names) is a girl who wants to determine her own future, a goal she fiercely holds on to even when she has no sense of her past or even her own self. Her complete loss of memory and history make it difficult to connect with her as a reader at times, but it serves to make her sympathetic. The panic she feels over this is easily experienced by the reader who enters her world as clueless and searching for the familiar as she is. Pin's lack of memory does not leave her an empty vessel for the reader to use as a placeholder. She is very much her own person, which is part of what makes it difficult to get into her head. She is an enigma to both herself and the reader through much of the book. She has a lot of amazing qualities, but a lot of faults as well. Her headstrong stubbornness results in both positive and negative actions and motivations. Even in the end I felt like I was just getting to fully understand who she was, which works well because she is only just figuring that out, and there is still so much she doesn't know. While frustrating at times, it's perfect for the story being told. And I found myself loving her even when I wanted to yell at her about some of the choices she was making. I can see why she does what she does, and a lot of what she does is truly amazing. She has to be a leader and make hard choices that have mixed consequences. She makes mistakes and is not as careful with other people's feelings as she ought to be. She is also a true hero and steadfast friend. She is unlikeable at times (who isn't) and that only serves to make her more real.

The story here belongs just as much to Shoe as it does to Pin. He isn't as forceful as Pin. He isn't as flashily confident as the prince. He has a quiet strength and stubbornness that is just as important though, and it is his determination to see Pin free to make her own decisions that allows her do to the work of freeing herself. But she does the same thing for him too, giving him the courage to embrace freedom in the first place. At times he is hesitant and giving to a fault. They complement each other well. Their relationship develops under incredibly fraught circumstances. I liked the realism in that. Dangerous and stressful events tend to magnify and accelerate the development of feelings and relationships. There are a lot of complications thrown into it too including Pen's role in Story and her relationship with the prince. I know that so many people are going to instantly think "love triangle" and not want anything to do with this. That would be a mistake. Love triangle does not always necessarily equal terrible development. They can be done well, and in this case it is a trope that is fundamentally important to the ideas of choice and happily ever after Prineas is exploring and questioning through her story. The prince, Cor, is a loyal, brave, and dedicated person. He is also smart and able to question the reality of the world around him. He is often a little to oblivious to his privilege and inclined to demand his own way, but he has a good heart. I really loved the interactions between all three of them together too. They are working as adults in their world and in leading a rebellion, but they are also very much teenagers in dealing with their feelings.

The book's numerous secondary characters are all wonderfully rendered as well including the Godmother. I'm going to say little else about that to avoid spoilers, but I loved what Prineas did with her and the fairy tale concept of the Witch. The plot gives a nod to host of tales beyond the obvious reworking of Cinderella and catching them all was part of the fun of reading it.

My favorite part of Ash & Bramble was how it explored the power of ideas, words, and Story. I always love it when books do that and do it well which this one does. I loved the dark twists that took and the ambiguousness of what was right and wrong in some of those cases. It is complicated and a lot of it left open to interpretation with unanswered questions. Yet it also has hope and looks to the future.

Ash & Bramble is everything I want in a fairy tale retelling and in books in general.

I read an ARC received from the author. Ash &Bramble is available for purchase on September 15th.

[Sarah Guo · Rating 5 out of 5]

SO GOOD!

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ash & Bramble is an imaginative retake on the Cinderella fairytale, it's not a straight retelling but instead it takes it's own path and turns everything you thought you knew on it's head. Let's just wonder for a minute where the fairytale Godmother gets her magic from. That pretty dress and beautiful glass slippers that appear at the swish of a wand - they had to come from somewhere right? Now let's imagine that the Godmother draws power from people playing roles in her stories and that she has a secret fortress where slaves are put to work to create all the props she needs to set the scene. Let's imagine that the Godmother captures unwitting passers by, wipes their memories and then puts them to work, either with a job inside her fortress sweat shop or with a role to play as part of a well known fairytale. People may realise that something strange is going on, they may not even like the role they've been given, but they are powerless to resist the lure of Story.

Pin wakes up one day with no memory of her past life, she is told that she is a seamstress and that it is her job to create whatever the Godmother asks for. She is given no name, she's not allowed to talk and she is beaten if she doesn't work hard enough. It's obvious to Pin from very early on that something is very wrong with the world she has found herself in, she may not remember her life before but one thing she knows for sure is that she's not willing to stay in the new life she's been given. Determined to escape and find the truth Pin puts a dangerous plan into action along with her only ally, a shoemaker who (rather unoriginally) calls himself Shoe.

I'm not going to give you any more information about what follows but if any of that makes you even slightly curious then you really HAVE to pick up a copy of Ash & Bramble. I had so much fun reading this story and loved the way Sarah Prineas turned the fairytale we all know and love completely on it's head. In fact, if you pay attention you'll spot nods to many more fairytales along the way although it's obvious that Cinderella is the main inspiration. This is a dark and twisted tale, one where the bad guys might end up winning and I was constantly surprised by the twists that the author threw in.

There is a sweet romance between Pin and Shoe but that's never the main focus of the story, their feelings start to develop quite quickly but it didn't really bother me because of the situation they were in. I think in those circumstances you'd be quick to latch on to anything or anyone that offered a little comfort and I liked the way things developed between them as the story continued. I've seen people mention a love triangle in their reviews but it never really felt that way to me, yes there is a third guy introduced, obviously you can't have a Cinderella story without Prince Charming, but Pin knew all along that any feelings she had towards the prince were forced due to Story and she never really trusted them. I would have liked a little more background information, especially when it came to how the Godmother's powers worked and why she needed the Story to keep going, but I still thoroughly enjoyed reading Ash & Bramble. This was my first book by Sarah Prineas but I can definitely see why she's so popular and will be checking out more of her work in the future.

[Katie Montgomery · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sarah Prineas is a BOSS, this book is LOVELY, and you should all go read it POSTHASTE.

To begin - Those reviewers (you know who are) who insist upon negatively reviewing the book based upon its cover, and furthermore on the premise that the cover is bad, wrong, or lazy because the gown is not "Cinderella-ish enough", you are PROVING MY POINT (see review below) and EMBARRASSING YOURSELVES. You clearly have not had the opportunity or time to ACTUALLY READ the novel (because if you had you would understand that in context the dress is totally appropriate), which is fine, but FOR FUCK'S SAKE INTERNET, we have a saying about JUDGING BOOKS BY THEIR COVERS for a REASON.

I think the YA world doesn't want this novel so much as need it. With so many fairy tale adaptions, re-tellings, dramatizations, etc flooding the market since 2008, I think there are a number of people who require a reminder that there is more to storytelling than the often saccharine and predictable practice of pulling a random story out of the Aarne-Thompson catalog and adding lasers.*

In Ash & Bramble, Prineas manages to create something that will appeal to both the fairy tale crowd and those fed up with it (I'm looking at you, Sondheim fans), and will make all its readers think long and hard about HEA**, what it really means, and who deserves one.

This should be required reading for all the impressionable young girls growing up in a post-Disney universe, and all the misguided folks that insist on buying those girls nothing that is not a) sparkly b) pink c) covered in princesses, unicorns***, and/or fairies****.

Lest this missive should drown in its own special brew of bitter deconstructionism, let's take a moment to reiterate:

Sarah Prineas is a BOSS, this book is LOVELY, and you should all go read it POSTHASTE.

*Am I being a grumpy old person? That felt like something a grumpy old person would write.

**Happily Ever After, as we should all know from 'Into the Woods', can be very dangerous indeed

***Which is a total mixed message, because of course in real life unicorns will gore the shit out of you with their poison horns

****Pratchett said it best: "The fantasy of justice is more interesting than the fantasy of fairies, and more truly fantastic."

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Closer to a 1.5, honestly.

Imagine that your favorite fairy tale was actually a dystopian horror show where a magical being was controlling the lives of people and enslaving/killing many in the process. Now take that kind of cool idea, and stretch it out twice as long as it needs to be, and then don't bother revealing what you're trying to do until more than halfway through when you've already probably lost the majority of the audience. I audibly groaned when the reveal actually occurred (and I had gone in knowing the conceit), and that rarely happens.

This book is too long, too convoluted, and tries far too hard to force plot points in a way to make the story work like the Cinderella tale it's taking from. While twisted fairy tales is a successful subgenre right now, this one utterly failed me in ways the others haven't. RC Lewis is doing better work in this area across the board right now.

[Cheryl · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was such a confusing, disappointing book. The idea of the book had great promise...an evil fairy godmother. But by the end of the book, I want sure who's side to be on anymore...the evil godmother or the annoying Pin/Pen.

I'm not really sure why I didn't DNF this book, except I had to see how the author wa going to end this train wreck. But even the ending left me with a lot of questions...like why didn't Pen want her memories back, what happened to misfits that were living in the woods, why didn't the forest like the godmother, and what happened between Pen and Owen? I really hate giving such low ratings to books, but I can't help it with this one. I just couldn't find anything that I really enjoyed about it.

[Britt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book totally turns happily ever after in its head!! I really loved the message behind the story. http://winterhavenbooks.blogspot.com/...

[Serap · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bunu da iki yıl önce okumuştum ve nefret etmiştim coook kötü bulmuştum ama içeriğini hiç hatırlamıyorum...