Jesus. This book. 
 Where do I even start? Carolyn Turgeon combines the fairytales of Snow White and Rapunzel ad somehow mashes them up together into one new fairytale. I never thought these two would ever mash-up, but Carolyn makes it all work. Rapunzel plays the 'evil' stepmother to Snow White's princess - and she might have made the perfect 'evil' stepmother, except that you cannot help but like her. 
 I found myself sympathizing with her more than any character in the book. The shit that she went through was heart breaking and even though she ended up with the man she'd waited seven years for, I couldn't help but feel that their union was bittersweet, that they married under weird and sad circumstances. Her life as queen was sad and I hated all the disapproval and distrust that she had to deal with since the day of her wedding. 
 I really admired her strength to keep going though. She made things work for her the best way that she knew how. Her invisible middle finger to the world at large was badass. To me, she never truly became evil. The author stuck with some of the basic fairytale and did the whole, "Give me her heart," spiel with the hunter and all, but I feel like in the end of everything, she redeemed herself. I mean, she realized what a dick she'd been acting and goes to attempt to rescue Snow White herself. 
 I don't know. This book really surprised me. I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did, but I'm glad I did. I'm taking a fairytale break after this though. This genre is exhausting, haha.