A Mirror Mended
by Alix E. Harrow
Our book club theme this past month was “A Fairy Tale
Retelling.” Alix Harrow has been one of my favorite writers of the past few
years with books like The Ten Thousand Doors of January and The Once
and Future Witches. Harrow’s writing is vivid with detail and energy. Her
heroine’s have a great amount of agency in affecting how the story moves
forward. Things don’t just happen to them, they make them happen.
A Mirror Mended is the continuation of an
LGBTQ retelling of fairy tales that began with A Spindle Splintered. “Zinnia
Gray has always been fascinated by Sleeping Beauty because she has a mystery
illness. No one who has it has survived past their 21st birthday. Her best
friend creates a Sleeping Beauty themed party for her on her 21st birthday.
Of course, her story doesn’t end there, and Zinnia finds herself in a fight,
not only for her life, but other sleeping beauties as well. I can’t recommend
this one enough. It’s short and sweet, and beautiful and courageous.” https://storymusing.blogspot.com/2022/06/reading-lgbtq-books.html
This book picks up the story from A Spindle
Splintered. Zinnia is able to jump from one dimension to another, and
different versions of fairytales, through mirrors, to help people in other
fairytales escape the doomed narrative.
There’s a certain aspect to this that reminds me of the funny
space adventure movies I’ve seen where the hero or heroine is jumping from one
adventure to another. She’s a swashbuckling heroine from my perspective, told
in the first person with a strong sense of voice.
“You might think interdimensional travel is difficult or
frightening, but it’s usually not that bad.” But this time is much worse than
usual. “Maybe my conviction that my organs are turning themselves inside out is
just a really shitty hallucination.”
This time Zinnia makes contact with yet another girl for help,
but it turns out to be the evil queen. However, the evil queen isn’t quite as
evil as the storytellers would have you believe, and Zinnia falls for the Evil
Queen, who she dubs Eva.
This actually seems to be more of a Little Red Riding Hood
story with a particularly horrific bend. But, again, this is not your usual
Red, and there’s a science fiction feel there too.
As always, the writing is vivid with details, funny, and
thought provoking. It’s not your typical fairy tale though it does retain some
elements, like a happy ending, of a kind. I highly recommend.
