The Holy Terror

It's definitely going to be difficult to not compare this to [b:Cinder|11235712|Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles, #1)|Marissa Meyer|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388186881s/11235712.jpg|15545385]; it's got robots, a misplaced princess, space travel, and a fairy tale backbone, but honestly this was just different enough for me to stop the comparisons there. The story didn't really get its hooks into me until around 19%, and it's interesting that I see a lot of people that didn't finish this stopped before that point. Honestly, that's where the whole book did a 180 for me and I was glued to the page. I'd say, if you get to chapter 7 and you're STILL bored, then this is probably not for you.

I love retellings. I eat them up and ask for seconds. Snow White isn't my favorite story, but the way Lewis incorporated some of the fairy tale's well-known bits into her novel were pretty smart. I didn't think it would be easy to translate some of the things from the original story into this futuristic retelling, but I enjoyed seeing little bits and pieces of it stitched in to fit perfectly.

While I really liked Essie, I thought the standout character was definitely her bumbling drone, Dimwit. That dumb robot actually made me tear up near the end. Her other drone, Cusser, gets an honorable mention, and I think if the drones hadn't been a part of this novel I wouldn't have liked the story nearly as much.

Another thing I appreciated was the fact that this is not a series. I know I said this in one of my last reviews for The Darkest Part of the Forest, but it is actually rare for a young adult novel to stand alone. Don't get me wrong, I love series too, but sometimes you don't need 3+ books to tell a story. A lot of times I feel like authors are just spreading things out because they can, or because it's too difficult to tell a full story in one book, but sometimes I just want to read a book and not worry about cliffhangers or how many months I have to wait to find out what's going to happen next.

I think it's possible to love this book and also love Cinder. There's no reason why both books can't exist with the amount of other fairy tale rellings. Sure, there are similarities, and you might feel like Cinder did them better (or worse) but it's not like you can't enjoy them both. Or course there's the flipside to this coin as well; if you hated Cinder you might love this one instead! If you're in the mood for a science fiction retelling of Snow White with robots and fighting and a pronounced darker side of this fairy tale, then give this one a chance.