ARC Review: Mirrored

Posted September 7, 2015 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

I received this book for free (hey, thanks!) in exchange for an honest review. I promise that this does NOT affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. For real.

ARC Review: MirroredMirrored by Alex Flinn
on September 15th 2015
(384 pages) • GoodreadsAmazon Barnes & Noble
three-stars

Celine's life is the stuff fairy tales are made of. She's beautiful, talented, and brave. Unfortunately, her tale comes complete with a wicked stepmother! When Violet steps into Celine's life, everything changes and weird things begin to happen to her—bizarre accidents, strange illnesses, and rabid animal attacks. Celine doesn't feel safe anywhere. It's almost as if some hateful witch is out to get her.

And there is. Violet has been waiting all her life to have Celine's father to herself. Getting rid of his gorgeous daughter is child's play for a witch as powerful as she is. Happy-ever-after isn't enough for Violet. She wants to be the fairest of them all, and Celine is in the way . . . but not for long.

Forced to take refuge with her friend Goose and his family, Celine gives up everything she loves and goes deep undercover. But will it be enough to fool Violet, or will Celine's fate be decided by a reflection in a magic mirror? And where do you find Prince Charming in Miami anyway?

Mirrored is a modern retelling of Snow White—told from the points of view of Violet, Celine, and Goose—with all the magic and mystery readers will love.

my thoughtsI definitely have some mixed feelings on this one. I’m tempted to lower the rating because of all the things that bugged me, but there were quite a few things I liked as well.

The overall story behind this one was really cool, from a retelling standpoint. All of the elements that actually connected to Snow White were really well-done. Some of them made you think a little bit, and I bet I even missed some of the references to the original story. The plot was a really interesting take on that story and didn’t seem too similar. I have to give this book points for that. It was also cool to have the three different perspectives in the story, starting with Violet’s backstory, how that impacts Celine in her part, and how Goose finishes off the book.

The characters were pretty good. Again, I liked getting a glimpse at Violet’s backstory so you could really see how and why she got to be the way she was. It was a little bit easier to be KIND OF sympathetic towards her when she starts being insane. Celine was a nice enough main character but was really just (1) smart and (2) obsessed with a singer named Jonah Prince. We don’t get too much more than that. Goose was probably my favorite but even then he wasn’t super memorable.

The pacing and writing style really bugged me. There were a few (okay, a lot) of places in the book that draaaaggged on and on. I was bored a lot of the time. The dialogue and writing overall was kind of choppy and off too. There were some parts that felt really forced and not actually teenager-like. I can’t think of specific examples, but the writing just didn’t jive with me. I think for that reason, I probably won’t try another Alex Flinn retelling.

The ending seemed a bit too convenient. I won’t spoil anything, but it was far-fetched. I mean yeah, this is a fairy tale retelling and involves magic, so it’s all kind of far-fetched… but this was different. What needed to be done was very obvious to me and it bugged me that literally no one thought of it. They all jumped to a different conclusion and the book dragged on forever.

Overall, I can’t say I’d wholeheartedly recommend this one. I don’t think I’ll bother with the author’s other books because of the writing style, but the retelling aspects were cool. feelings from friendss

rating breakdown

Plot & Premise
four-stars
Characters
three-stars
Writing Style
two-stars
Pacing & Flow
two-half-stars
Feels or Swoons
three-half-stars
Addiction Level
three-half-stars
Overall: 3.1

2 responses to “ARC Review: Mirrored

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