sigelphoenix

First, some context: I first heard of Jim Hines when I found his LiveJournal during RaceFail, and appreciated his voice as one of the few white authors who spoke sense, and who also owned up to the gaps in his knowledge. So while I have resolved to support more authors of color by buying their books, I also picked up The Stepsister Scheme with confidence that I wouldn't want to bang my head against a wall or throw the book across the room.

The premise of the book itself is a lot of fun: a retelling of popular fairy tales (some Disney version, some not), wherein Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty are essentially secret agents for the queen of Cinderella's home nation. Our POV character is Danielle (Cinderella), who is new to all this business and only got pulled in because her stepsisters kidnapped her husband, Prince Armand.

The book took a while for me to get into, for a couple of reasons. First, it's a mix of comedy and drama, which is more lighthearted than what I usually go for. The comedy isn't slapstick, though, and Hines makes you smile without trying to impress the reader with his wit all the time, so I ended up enjoying it once I got into the flow of the book.

Second, I had to feel out the book to see how high my defenses needed to be. (It's something I always have to do, but sometimes books answer the question early on by being very clearly status quo - for instance, fantasy that is squarely in the Western tradition, usually medieval-ish setting, where everyone is white and straight and there might be strong female characters but no grappling with feminist issues. For better or for worse, that tells me early on to lower my expectations for the book, but at least then I know the book will entirely avoid issues of race and sexuality, and I'll need to tolerate only the omission rather than a royal fucking up.) The Stepsister Scheme, as a reworked fairy tale(s), indicates early on that there will be questioning of the norm. So Danielle is Cinderella - but she's not the demurely feminine Disney version who sings a lot and doesn't get angry. Is she Liberated (in the mainstream-fiction's-interpretation-of-feminism sense)? She's uncomfortable being a princess - just because it's different from what she's used to, or does she question the fact that there are peasants laboring away for her luxury? Does she accept pretty dresses and motherhood without question? And so on.

High expectations? Sure, but I don't apologize for having them when I'm sharing the money that could be dedicated to underrepresented authors. And when these questions actively affect my reading enjoyment, the whole reason I buy books in the first place.

A brief overview on my verdict regarding these and other questions: ( cut for mild spoilers )

( really spoilery )

Damn, but I had a lot to say about this book. And I even cut it down a bit. I think I'm having a little Joss Whedon Syndrome here - I feel like I'm close to really loving the work, and because of that my defenses are accordingly lowered and my expectations are accordingly raised. (See above re: omission versus fucking up.) I want to support a book that is aimed at mainstream readers and accessible to younger (teenaged) readers and also assumes that the wife being the husband's savior, or that the women being both heterosexual and homosexual, needs neither preamble nor excuse. I have high hopes that this is a book I'll be able to describe someday as, "a relatively weak start to the series, but still quite enjoyable, and man do the rest of the books really realize the potential here and get awesome ..."

I actually really think you all should read this book, and I highly encourage you to purchase it rather than borrow it (for similar reasons as I encouraged you to buy Silver Phoenix).