Yesterday, I read A Spindle Splintered and A Mirror Mended by Alix E. Harrow (fantasy, 119 pages and 128 pages).

A Spindle Splintered: “It’s Zinnia Gray’s twenty-first birthday, which is extra special because it’s the last birthday she’ll ever have. When she was young, an industrial accident left Zinnia with a rare condition. Not much is known about her illness, just that no one has lived past twenty-one. Her best friend, Charm, is intent on making Zinnia’s last birthday special with a full sleeping-beauty experience, complete with a tower and a spinning wheel. But when Zinnia pricks her finger, something strange and unexpected happens, and she finds herself falling through worlds with another sleeping beauty just as desperate to escape her fate.”

A Mirror Mended: “Zinnia Gray, professional fairy-tale fixer and lapsed Sleeping Beauty, is over rescuing snoring princesses. Once you’ve saved a dozen damsels and burned fifty spindles, once you’ve gotten drunk with twenty good fairies and made out with one too many members of the royal family, you start to wish some of these girls would just get a grip and try solving their own narrative issues. Just when Zinnia’s beginning to think she can’t handle one more princess, she glances into a mirror and sees another face looking back at her: the shockingly gorgeous face of evil, asking for her help. Because there’s more than one person trapped in a story they didn’t choose. Snow White’s evil queen has found out how her story ends and she’s desperate for a better ending. She needs Zinnia to help her before it’s too late for everyone. Will Zinnia accept the queen’s poisonous request and save them both from the hot iron shoes that wait for them, or will she try another path?”

I enjoyed both of these books very, very much. The stories were both very well-written with a relatable voice. Zinnia provides a very interesting look at the way western society views childhood terminal illnesses and I enjoyed her attitude throughout both books.

One of the interesting parts of the books for me was the use of modern technology infused with fairy tales. I very much enjoyed how Zinnia’s cell phone still worked when she found herself in the fairy tale worlds and how her friends and family reacted to her sudden disappearance.

I also enjoyed the extra fairy tale knowledge and the continuous references to the non-Disney version of fairy tales and folklore that are often very dark and borderline horrific. The Snow White stories in A Mirror Mended definitely don’t include happy songs or helpful animals.

Overall, I’d say both books are about a three to a three and a half on my rating scale. I’m happy I read them and even though I read them from the library, I intend to purchase them for myself at some point in the future.