Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with this book, in exchange for my honest opinion. It will be available to purchase on June 25th.

This is going to be one of those blog posts that is a mixed bag. The premise was original, in that it’s Snow White’s nemesis that’s a bit reluctant to take up her expected role as as the villain. I also haven’t read many fairy tale adaptations that take place in both “the real world” (I write that in quotes because the way the real world was written felt off to me), and the fairy tale world.

The premise is what worked for me. The rest…not so much. The characters felt very one-dimensional to me, like they were archtypes of a CW show. There was the snotty ex, the prom queen, the popular good girl that everyone likes, and the misunderstood outcast. I found it very difficult to care about any of the characters at all.

The writing didn’t work for me. I’m just too enamored by words. So, when something unexpected happened to the main character (Everly), and the book just said, “reeling” in italics, it really irritated me. I would have preferred something along the lines of, “the news sent me reeling,” just as an example. A full thought, as opposed to a quick word, would have worked much better for me.
The dialogue felt very over the top and unbelievable to me, and the very long random explanations given throughout the first bit of the book caused the story to seem very stop-and-go. I never ended up invested in the story.

Ultimately, while it had potential, this book simply did not deliver. However, I could be just too much of a grammar nerd to appreciate the dialogue and writing style. While this book wasn’t for me, this is just one person’s opinion. I believe that Showalter is very popular author, but this book just wasn’t my thing.

The Evil Queen is a new book hitting the YA fantasy atmosphere. It's the first book in The Forest of Good and Evil trilogy and I found it to be quite entertaining.

It follows prophetic storyline about 6 girls, one of them the Evil Queen and the rest of the book is spent shrouded in this mystery as you try to figure out which girl fits that role. 100 pages in and all my early reservations were appeased as I was submerged in the intricacies of the narrative. There were some ballsy and unprecedented twists that affirmed my quickly emerging adoration with this, even more. The story is very engaging, and I read the book in no time! Some chapters lagged a little, but not enough for me to be bored or start skimming.

My only problem is this book suffers because it can be easily overlooked among hundreds of other similar retellings or YA fantasies. I wish that the world building would be more thorough, but even as it is, we get enough sense of the environment that we can picture the scenes vividly. Perhaps we will find out more in the sequel so for now I'll let it slide.

Would I Recommend It:
I recommend this book! Fantasy fan, retellings fan, Snow White fan, this book is magical and epic and I think will appeal to anyone.

Thank you to the publisher and author for this ARC through NetGalley.

I love all of Gena Showalter's books. She is one of my all time favorite authors. With that being said I really enjoyed this book. It felt more YA than her other fantasy books, but it was still a good read. I'm interested to see if there will be any more in this series.

I was really looking forward to this book. I love retellings especially when you get villain backstory and this synopsis sounded really good. Unfortunately I DNF’d this one. It started out good but I found the main character (Everly) to be annoying and I just couldn’t connect to any of the characters. It felt like it was written for the younger end of ya and that may have been what contributed to my disconnect.

Giving this one 4.25/5 stars!

The Evil Queen is a retelling of Snow White, but Gena Showalter puts her own unique twist on how the plot develops. We have the prophecy, as in many retelling type stories, and characters that are each designated their own place in the story. The plot takes of fairly quickly at the beginning, with a prologue of what's to come.

So what's unique about it? Even though the characters know the story they are retelling is Snow White, they don't know which character they are living as. They all work through the book as events unfold trying to determine what their role in the story is. I found this to be super cool! Another thing that really added to the mystery of the characters was that any decision they made could change who their character was. Like if Prince Charming was to instead betray everyone and desert them all? Well, his role of Prince Charming would go to someone else instead, and he'd be given a new role without him knowing. This doesn't happen in the book obvs, but just wanted to give an example. I found this to be a really cool concept and it was done so well! It's definitely the best part of the group and leaves a ton of freedom for character development all throughout.

A few issues I had were how others immediately classify Everly as evil. We know from the beginning what her role is, but her actions don't justify how the others perceive her. It wasn't fair, and anyone can see that she was only doing what was best to save her loved ones. It's definitely more nitpicky of me, since it's meant to be used to settle the other characters into their roles, and the love triangle of course, but it just didn't sit with me 100%. Another was that the middle was a bit slower than I'd like. I felt like things were moving at a great pace, and then it just sloooowwwsss down. It lasts for quite a bit, but it picks up again which is nice. This might be nitpicky, but I don't like the inner monologues that Everly has. It feels really off because we see all the events from her POV to begin with, so having these inner thoughts pop up randomly don't make much sense.

Overall, I really enjoyed this one! I'd been eyeing it and was so glad to have gotten both a physical and ebook ARC! Knowing that there's a sequel to this, I'd definitely be tempted to pick it up. One could even read this as a standalone tbh. I'd say to check this one out sometime! I think it may be worth the read!

ARC provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book was an amazing read! It was captivating and intense! I was so giddy when I got picked tonread this book, and it did not disappoint. They plot line was unique. This author knows how to suck a reader in to the story!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own

This was an interesting take on Snow White retelling via a modern Evil Queen POV. While I found the first half of the book interesting by the middle I felt it drag. Still an decent retelling.

I received this NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!
The premise of this book is so interesting! That these characters are prophesied to play certain roles in what we know as fairytale stories. The main character, Everly, believes she is the evil queen but so do the other girls in this novel. I loved uncovering the mystery of who is who in this book. What I didn't really love was the dialogue, it just made me cringe a lot. Overall I really enjoyed the plot!

It breaks my heart to say this but I DNF'd this book. I'm a massive Showalter fan. I love all her adult PNR and her YA contemporary, but I have yet to read a YA fantasy from her that I like. It's written for a younger YA audience, I believe. That was the disconnect for me. I'm an adult fan.

I won't be reviewing this online. I only review books I recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me a digital copy of this book. I loved loved loved it. The narrator is edgy and fun. The writing style is interesting and original. I felt drawn into the characters immediately and was happy to stay with them through this story. This is perfect for those who enjoyed “Fairest” by Marissa Meyer. I will definitely be purchasing this book for the library.

LOVE LOVE LOVE Showalter!! Now having said that, this is not my favorite book from her. I found the story very confusing at times with the timeline jumping around the way it did. But overall I loved the story and am very curious to see what comes next. I will reserve judgement until the next book.

I won't put a review for this one on Goodreads or the library website as I stopped reading at about 30%. I just couldn't handle the tone - the narrator was a bit woe-is-me for no reason all of the time and while that was sort of played off as snark, it just wasn't doing it for me. That, and there were several obvious connections that the main character refused to make, which led to completely avoidable problems arising (as the kids probably are no longer saying, she was TSTL). I kept with it until we got to fairy tale world, but as I found those characters to be arguably more annoying than our regular earth characters, I decided to abandon this one.

While I didn't like it, I will absolutely recommend it to younger teens who like fairy tale retellings or Rachel Hawkins' books. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't for me.

This book was received as an ARC from Inkyard Press in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

I see a lot of modern fairy tales trending with the new up in coming YFantasy novels but I have never read a story that had a modern take on the prequel to the most classic fairy tale of all time. I loved how the whole tale was a struggle against good and evil and how much she wanted to escape the temptations of the darkness and how it overtook her life and everything she had ever loved. Also, you ever wonder how strong a prophecy really is and what it really meant to be and why it has to happen.

We will consider adding this book to our YFantasy collection at our library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.

If you liked Once Upon a Time you will love Gena Showalter's, "The Evil Queen." A creative twist on the mythology of fairy tales. Everly and her twin sister were raised as modern-day mortals. At the age of seventeen they discover, they were whisked away from another dimension as babies and must now return to Enchantia. Everly felt no love or acceptance in the mortal world except from her sister, mother, and step-father, humans were frightened by her strength and bravery. In Enchantia she meets Prince Roth who is instantly drawn to her like she is the missing piece of his puzzle. As in any good fairy tale the story includes lots of battles, intrigue, and romance. Once you get started you can't put it down!

I wanted to like this, but just couldn’t.
I found the beginning of the somewhat childish, and the rest of the book dull.

I have some mixed feelings about this book. I enjoyed it enough but there were parts of it that felt so juvenile. Which is strange considering the book is older YA.

The premise was great and I spent the entire book trying to figure out who played what role. That part was really well done. I enjoyed the characters and each individual arc.

Where I was lost was the narration of the book itself. Everly felt very immature to me. Her personality and thought processes made me cringe on multiple occasions. And not in a good way.

Overall, it was a decent book. Nothing special in my opinion.

The Evil Queen is a young adult retelling of Snow White. It has a really well plotted synopsis, yet it seems to delve out the characters well in this one. I like the though process of where Ms. Showalter was going with this novel. I think young adult will enjoy the dark nature of it.

I had such high hopes for this book. The description contained so many elements that I absolutely love: a magical realm, Princesses raised in our normal world, fairy tales, true love, etc. Unfortunately this one fell a little short for me. The main character, Everly just wasn't particularly likable for me. I wanted to like her. There were times that I absolutely was rooting for her, but overall I just wasn't that invested in her. The way this story unfolds you need to be 100% invested in her because some messed up stuff goes down. Honestly I wish the story was not even about Everly and her peers, I thought the story of her mom and the other women that ate the magical apples would have been far more interesting. As it was, we meet all the children of the apples, but only Everly is really given any attention. She and the Prince are the only characters that are given any time an attention to the detriment of the overall story. There were so many other characters whose actions had huge impacts on the story. but they just seemed tossed in like plot grenades. I wanted to know more about all these other characters and their motivations, but none of that information was ever shared. It was occasionally a fun read, but I was equally frustrated with it and yelling at the characters for willfully making poor choices. Overall a bit of an up and down emotional roller coaster for me, but I would be particularly interested in a prequel.

The story has an excellent start and I liked that it was told in first person. Unfortunately, my expectations were a little too high and ended in a DNF.

What worked:
- I liked that we dive right into the story from the get-go. A lot happens, which is also its ultimate downfall for me.

What didn't work:
-The timelines move back and forth at warp speed making it confusing. It was like listening to someone with a million thoughts speaking a mile a minute. You had to keep up to follow.
- Because there's so much going on with alternating timelines, the story doesn't properly unfold. Before one portion of the story finishes, the next one begins.

The final straw for me was when the story takes place in the mortal world. The narration went from classic fairytale to contemporary YA. It was like I was reading an entirely different story.

There others who enjoyed it, I just wasn't one of them..sorry..

Thank you Netgalley & Harlequin teen for my ARC.

Oh, this was deliciously good! I've been a fan of Gena Showalter's for years so I just had to get my hands on this and it did NOT disappoint.