*~~*ARC kindly provided to me for an honest review *~~*

- Review to come

Review originally posted on my blog with added content on Mikku-chan / A world full of words

First of all I wanna point out that Winterglass is incredibly diverse. The world does not have any hetero- or cisnormativity. The relationships are all queer and there’s a character that uses ey/em pronouns, which I have never before seen in a book!
I really appreciated the diversity and as far as I could tell, there’s nothing problematic about it. I’m also pretty sure everyone in the cast is a POC.

My problem with this book was first and foremost the world building. While the plot fitted very well to this short format, the world was way too intricate to be understood in such a short amount of time. It felt like someone cut out a part of a longer novel instead of this being a standalone story.
The world certainly seemed intriguing but I just barely even understood it.

That’s also a lot due to the writing. I found it to be so complex that I had a hard time following the story. You would have to pay so much attention so every single word and it still would read a little discombobulated.
Also the change in POV was not always clear and it often took me a long time to realise which perspective I’m currently reading from.

Overall it definitely had more potential than it was able to deliver. I think this might be a great read for people who can handle being left in the dark with the world building and who love complex writing but it just really wasn’t for me!

Winterglass is a Southeast Asian retelling of the Snow Queen. It was an incredible and complex book which didn't give you the information all at once and it wasn't easy to understand all the time. You had to work for the facts and the experience of comprehending the narrative was very active. I appreciated that the author didn't underestimate her readers and gave us the tools to put together the plot but didn't give us all easily. There aren't many times in sff stories where I see complicated women and non-binary people who are heroes and villains, who are fighting for what they want but also having contradictory feelings and thoughts. This book had so many of them.

The worldbuilding was intricate and unique. There were a lot of innovative pieces of details that made the reading experience stand out. I don't think this plot would have worked in any other setting and I really enjoyed that. I loved that everyone was queer as well. The main characters are a lesbian woman and a non-binary femme person (who uses she/her). Also, there are non-binary side characters and characters who use neopronouns. I really liked that it had an all-POC cast of characters. My favourite part was without a doubt the beautiful descriptions and writing. The ability that Benjanun Sriduangkaew had to engage you totally with what she was writing at all times and the obvious and intricate thought process that she did to get to where this book was, were what made this book.

I thought it could have done with more pages though. It was very short for what it was trying to be (it could have been a 500+ pages book easily) and it left me wanting so much more. I really wanted to explore more of this world and it definitely had the potential to be incredibly large. The ending lacked tension and it was anti-climatic. It felt like it was preparing for something bigger and it fell super short. Apart from that, the romance was fantastic and I was invested in it as soon as they were on page together. Also, the sex scenes were written beautifully. Amazing book!

3/5

Things I liked:
- multiple LGBTQ characters, treated romances between LGBTQ characters in the same manner (and level of detail) that one sees with more traditional male-female pairings, which I appreciated. The fluid genders and varied sexualities of the characters were very normalized in this book (no real "shock" shown by other characters or negative inner thoughts) and I really appreciated that.
- the concept was fascinating. I found the Snow Queen to be intriguing, and the idea that she could change what had once been lush tropical jungles to endless winter ecosystems was interesting.
-I wanted to learn more about the mirror carriers and the backstory for the two leads.

Things I didn't like:
- the world of this story has some incredibly alien elements (like the shadow swords and perhaps even shadow people?), and the reader is thrown into them headfirst right away... in some books this works well, but the presentation/explanation in this book didn't work for me. From the first pages I found myself confused about many smaller details, which over time built up and kept me from connecting with the sorry. Honestly, even when we did get more insight and concrete descriptions, I found myself still confused and unclear about what was happening. 🤷‍♀️

Conclusion:
I really wanted to like this book, but I'm the end I couldn't immerse myself in the world because I kept going "ok, wait, what just happened?" This kept me disconnected from the story and the characters, and ultimately left me feeling disappointed in the book.

Would recommend to:
-fantasy readers who are looking for LGBTQ protagonists (and antagonists)
- readers seeking morally ambiguous main characters


*Received an ARC from Netgalley in return for an honest and fair review of this title*

When we read stories, we are driven by a desire for closure, but we also long to have our satisfaction deferred until it is earned. We feel cheated if closure comes too soon, so the success of any story depends on keeping us in a protracted state of suspense as much as releasing that tension in a gratifying way. These contradictory impulses – a desire for the end and for making the end desirable – were dubbed “textual erotics” by the literary theorist Peter Brooks, a term that applies in both a literal and theoretical sense when discussing Benjanun Sriduangkaew’s new novella, Winterglass.
Nuawa Dasaret has known that her life was a story since the age of six, when her mother saved her from execution by putting a shard of the Winter Queen’s mirror in her heart. From that moment on, her story could only end one way – with Nuawa assassinating the Winter Queen and liberating her homeland of Sirapirat from the monarch’s brutal, icy reign. Being a story, though, there are detours and digressions, particularly in the form of General Lussadh, the Queen’s right hand, charged with finding all the glass-bearers. Nuawa’s attraction to Lussadh, which is reciprocated, causes her to question exactly what conclusion would satisfy her desire.
Both Lussadh and Nuawa are aware that the engines that power their respective stories are fragile, that satisfaction is more complicated than simply finding closure. Nuawa, who makes her living as a fighter, enters a tribute tournament that would, if she wins, land her in the service of the Winter Queen. When Lussadh discovers that Nuawa is the last glass-bearer, she knows she could simply bring Nuawa directly to the Winter Queen and fulfill her charge, but is compelled to learn more about Nuawa, and to get closer to her. Nuawa herself must suppress the ever-present desire to strike out at her nation’s conqueror when she is near; others have tried and failed, and Nuawa needs to understand why or else she risks failure too.
Sriduangkaew’s prose carries an intense lyricism that flirts with decadence, and often writers like this – who push and pull words like a photographer or painter manipulates colors – can lead readers down an aesthetic rabbit hole that loses sight of fictions other goals. Sriduangkaew herself has been guilty of this on occasion, but not so with Winterglass. With her best stories, she knows what stimulates our need to consume them, our desire to earn their riches. That the characters in Winterglass know it too is a flourish just delicate enough to savor.

I am angry at this book. Angry because that's not an ending. Angry because there's throwing you straight into a world, but then there's lazy worldbuilding. Angry because of the lazy characterisation and lazy relationship development. But mostly angry because I put up with all that in the hopes that I'd get a satisfying ending and I didn't.

(But Charlotte, you say. Life often doesn't have satisfying endings. Yeah, but this ain't life, is it. This is fiction, and I would like my satisfying ending.)

But, ranting aside, this book did nothing special for me. Sure, it had potential, but ultimately, it was just a bit too short to live up to it. Short and underdeveloped.

The two main characters are primarily archetypes: the perfect warrior, and the loyal general. They aren't ever seen as much more than that, and it's boring. Because these are the people I'm supposed to be rooting for (though how I can root for Lussadh, the loyal general of a colonising invader, when she is so completely loyal she believes the invader to be right in every aspect, I don't know - but that's a whole other kettle of fish). And I just didn't connect, because they didn't seem to be anything beyond those archetypes.

Then there's the fact that there's never any intensity to any of the scenes. Not the fight scenes, and not the sex scenes. You know, the two types of scene in particular where you might want there to be something on the line? And also, you're telling me that Nuawa, the perfect warrior, meets no one close to her match in a tournament of 400 people? That she passes through it perfectly, almost without even having to break a sweat? Heck, even having one battle put in where she doesn't win it easily would be enough to raise the intensity. As it is, we breeze through these fight scenes (I'm not kidding, they take 2 pages, maximum), without any conflict. What would have happened to Nuawa's plan to assassinate the queen if she had failed at any point to become part of her army? What if she'd ever been in a position where that would have threatened to have happened? Who knows, because she's never put there. And it's frustrating because there's so much more that could have been done, but no. She's the Perfect Warrior, and thus will not be defeated.

The lack of intensity in the sex scenes also arises from their shortness, but also from the fact that the characters don't seem to have any personality of their own (archetypes, remember?), and it's just boring. Give me more. Actually develop the relationship. It's not even instalove here, it's just shoving two people together when they have no chemistry and being like "now kiss". Does not work.

And, finally, the ending. Don't even get me talking about that ending. It's like this isn't actually a standalone book. Like maybe the author planned another. Well, you're not getting me with that hook. I'm out.

First off, look at that gorgeous cover. SO eyecatching.
Winterglass is a fairytale retelling of the Snowqueen set in an alternate fantasy South and East Asian setting. The amount of detail and world building in this novella is amazing. The writing style is really good too, and economical. I feel like I got to know the characters pretty well in this short amount.
There are duels, and ghost fueled technology, and the undercurrents of rebellion against an imperial ruler. Palace Intrigue and romance. Family. It's a really good tale, although the ending kind of let me down - it seems more like a half way point. It had a lot of emotional impact, but it didn't really seem to be the end.
Really looking forward to checking out more by this author. Winterglass comes out 5th Dec 2017!

I loved the atmosphere and the slow pace. I couldn’t quite picture the world, there weren’t enough details about it but the imagery and descriptive prose created an atmosphere, a feeling, so strong it almost didn’t matter to me. I’m left with lasting impressions of an icy, powerful queen and a beautiful, cold world here you have to be ruthless to survive.

Winterglass meshes sci-fi and fantasy – I’d say it’s sci-fi at the core but it’s based on a retelling of Snow White and the fantasy feel is very strong. It’s so well combined that it wasn’t until afterwards that I found myself wondering what genre it is. It’s definitely original and inventive and brings something new to both genres.

The writing falls just short of (or goes a bit too far over) the beautiful, descriptive style the author seems to be aiming for. Edging just too far into complicated, it made it difficult for me to follow the story. It ends up in ‘why use one word when you can use ten’ territory and drops in so many unusual ‘big’ words that I found myself having to use the Kindle dictionary on nearly every page. I don’t mind looking up words every so often but this was too excessive for me and interrupted my enjoyment of the story.

Near the end, I was struggling to concentrate enough to follow what was happening. I found myself reading other books as a break from the amount of brain power I had to use on this. I’m still not sure what the author was trying to do with the ending and I can’t tell if the story is done or not. It’s open-ended so a sequel is possible but it’s also possible that the author intended the story to be done.

Nuanced, intricate stories where you have to work out for yourself the characters motivations might be your thing, if so I think Winterglass could easily be a four-star book for you. I appreciated the depth but I found it hard to follow and I couldn’t grasp the reasons behind Nuawa’s actions at the end. I also felt the use of so many fancy words came across as the author trying too hard to impress. For these reasons, I’m only giving three stars.

3 1/2 Stars. This is high fantasy with steampunk like elements. It is a loose retelling of the Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen. Due to the length, I guess you would consider this a novella, but I didn’t even realize that while reading. Considering all the world building that was needed, there was a lot packed into this story in such a short time.

There was a lot of LGBT representation in this book which I liked. Lesbian characters, transgendered, gender-fluid, and there was no issues, everything just was accepted. There is a relationship building and some sex scenes, but I would not consider this book a romance.

I enjoyed this read. I thought Sriduangkaew writes really well. But I must admit this was not an easy read for me. I like to think I have a decent vocabulary, but I found myself looking up a lot of words. Some even my Kindle did not know so I’m not sure if those were made up for the story, or just beyond my Kindle’s capabilities. And because of having to look up more words than I am used to, the book’s flow was a little stop/start for me. I like to get really immersed in my reading so this did jar me out of it at times.

My other issue, I’m left with some questions. I could not tell from the ending if this story is over, or if there will be a book two. The storyline itself is not close to over, but I’m not sure if the author will continue. If I knew for sure the story will continue, I might rate this a tad higher. Not knowing if my questions will ever be answered is leaving me a tad unbalanced. If there is a book two, I will absolutely read it. I’m keeping my fingers crossed there is.

An ARC was given to me by Netgalley, for a honest review

Do you like The Snow Queen? Do you like prose? Do you like ladies kissing ladies? THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU, HERE ENJOY