In A Mirror Mended, we return to Zinnia and her multi-verse of fairy tale adventures, but this time, the evil queen needs her help. This is one that I've had to sit with for a while to process. I didn't think we would get a sequel to A Spindle Splintered, but I'm so happy that Harrow wrote it.

Life is hard, and it's messy, and nothing and no one ever are what they seem at the first glance. You try to help some and in turn end up neglecting others. In this sequel Zinnia explores what it really means to be a hero and what happens when heroes have to face their endings. Zinnia knows that she's living off borrowed time with her illness, but bucks up against her fate time and time again. This book was short, but it really packed a punch with questioning how we understand the stories embedded in our society and the way in which we views ourselves and treat other people in turn.

There's a lot that can be said about the theme of agency in these books which I think is something that makes these books so special to me. Zinnia clings to what little agency she has to decide her own fate after the first book, and the evil queen desperately seeks a way out of her own ending and to be her own person. Exploring classic Grimm's fairy tales through this lens allows us to explore this theme of making your own decisions, which is in frank juxtaposition to what many of lessons of what the fairy tales try to teach - fall in line, or you will be punished.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Tor for the e-ARC of this book!

I love this series! The first book was great and I loved this one just as much. I will always love and recommend books with a disabled main character plus this book is hella queer. I would definitely recommend reading this series!

Zinnia Gray has spent the past five years helping countless Sleeping Beauties escape their fate while attempting to escape her own. But as she's finishing up in one story she's pulled into another world entirely and finds herself face to face with the evil queen of Snow White. Zinnia has never been pulled into a different fable before, and when the queen asks for Zinnia's help on how she can pass through worlds, Zinnia has to decide if she wants to give the villain a chance at a better ending.

When I tell you I DEVOURED this novella! Alix E Harrow blends beautiful descriptions with just hilarious writing in A Mirror Mended. I seriously was laughing out loud as I read. I love Zinnia as a character and immensely enjoyed reading the adventure she went on in this book.

One thing about the Fractured Fables series that I continue to love is the feminist exploration of these classic fables we all know. In A Mirror Mended we get to explore the villainous characterization of women in these stories. The assumption that the evil witch, queen, crone, etc., jealous of a younger beauty, is resigned to villainy as her only option. The "evil queen" in this story, given the name Eva by Zinnia (since the evil queen never really gets a name, huh?), is desperate for power; power over herself and power over her choices. Narrative agency is something that Zinnia has lots of experience dealing with, and I loved the dynamic of Eva and Zinnia together as they realize their commonalities.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tordotcom for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Zinnia has been saving sleeping beauties throughout the fairytales multiverse and she's honestly bored of it. But something unexpected happens and she's thrown into a different tale, Snow White, by the evil queen who has read her story and has no intention of living that ending.
Zinnia is, as usual, very horny and hilarious. A tall evil gorgeous woman is keeping her prisoner and her evil heaving bosom is not helping Zinnia keep her mind out of dangerous naughty territory.
It was fast but not rushed, and very funny. I read it in one go because I wanted to see the ending but also because it was truly unputdownable.

This was just okay for me. I had enjoyed A Spindle Splintered but this sequel fell flat. The new characters didn't feel very fleshed out, even for a novella, and some of the super meta discussion towards the end was a little much for my taste. Still a fun tongue-in-cheek feminist take on fairy tales this time with bonus Hot Evil Queen so I didn't have a bad time reading it, I just didn't love it.

Fairy Tale Retelling 💕 LGBTQ+ Rep 💕 Strong Female Lead 💕 Breaking Conventions

This is the second book in the Fracture Fables series, and I loved it just as much as the first one! I would absolutely recommend reading book 1 in the series, A Spindle Splintered. It’s fantastic, and it really sets up what happens in this book.

Zinnia is our MC through this series. She’s got a rare medical condition that she knows is going to eventually kill her, but when she falls into fairy tale versions of Sleeping Beauty, her health improves, and she finds that she gets to be the hero for the fated Sleeping Beauties. But something goes wrong one day, and she ends up in a Snow White story. Now she’s got a whole new set of problems to work out!

Zinna meets a new frienemy/love interest/villain in this story, and I really enjoyed their relationship. Evil Queen is sassy, funny, and overall a great addition to the story. As they work to find common ground to fix their problem, I loved all the things that happen to them. One of my favorite things about this series are the references and versions of the Sleeping Beauty, and now, Snow White! It’s so interesting to read about all the versions real and imagined!

These books are pretty darn short, so fast readers will fly through them. Overall I really enjoyed this, and I hope there’s another book on the horizon so I can continue with this fun series!

Zinnia Gray has been crashing through the Sleeping Beauty multiverse saving princesses from their fates for five years now. She's getting a little tired of the same tale, but the thought of actually going back to the real world and dealing with her own life is not something she even wants to contemplate. Then there's the fact that she and her best friend Charm have not spoken to each other in months. So, Zinna continues saving the day for others.

After one such happily ever after, Zinnia looks in a mirror and notices an unfamiliar woman looking back at her. Suddenly Zinnia is transported through the mirror and into a version of Snow White, coming fact to face with the Evil Queen herself.

The first installment in this series dealt a lot with fate and changing the hands we're dealt. I'd say that Mirror Mended follows along in the same vein, but goes even further with its commentary about good vs. evil. Is the villain always a villain? Or only when the protagonist is telling their side of the story? There are, after all, two sides to every story. I really like that Alix E. Harrow took such a classically villainous character like the Evil Queen (here known also as Eva) and gave her more, gave her a backstory which is something lacking in all the iterations of Snow White that I'm familiar with.

I'll admit I don't know as much about the Snow White story (beyond Disney) as I did about Sleeping Beauty. In that regard, I felt like I wasn't as connected with the story and how it unfolded as much as I was with the first book. I was surprised by the five-year narrative break between the stories as there is a lot that has obviously happened that needs to be reconciled. I just don't think we get that full reconciliation due to the fact that there's simply not enough space or time to expand upon that within the length of a novella.

Overall, though I think I enjoyed not being as familiar with the Snow White tale as it meant that every turn was unexpected, and ultimately, I enjoyed visiting another fairy-tale realm. I love the idea of people not being entirely who you think they are on the surface level. Eva was my favorite part of the story and that's honestly something I'd never thought I would say in regards to the Evil Queen.

There was a more definitive ending with A Mirror Mended than with the previous book which tells you directly that Zinnia's adventures will continue. I think there's still space open should Alix E. Harrow continue writing Zinnia's stories. There are certainly plenty of Fairy-Tales that need fixing.

I will start this off by saying I would buy and ready Alix E. Harrow's grocery list if she published it. She is an automatic buy author for me. When I found out that she was doing a fractured fairytale series I was beyond excited! The first installment, A Spindle Splintered, was a fantastic Sleeping Beauty retelling. This book we follow Zinnia Gray on her latest adventure into a familiar, or is it, fairytale with Snow White and it doesn't disappoint. While staying close to the tale's true theme, we experience it through a more modern eye with contemporary values. The only thing I disliked about this was a quote Zinnia uses that is straight from a TikTok sound. It removed me from the story and just felt forced. Overall I truly enjoyed this book and would recommend the series.

A Mirror Mended is Fractured Fables #2. In this installment Zinnia Gray of Ohio has been pulled out of her Sleeping Beauty multiverse and into the world of Snow White. By none other than The Evil Queen, desperate to leave her story. After hopping through multiple Snow White worlds they find themselves in the truly horrifying world of a young girl named Red. Together Zinnia and the Queen fight for their own Happily Ever After.
I loved everything about this novella! The only negative I can think of is that it is entirely too short. I could have read so much more and I'm sincerely hoping this is not the last.
Thank you, Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The sequel to A Spindle Splintered, this time as a retelling of Snow White. I always appreciate revisiting classic tales to question what they say about us and propose a more modern retelling. However, I don't know if this novella added further to the discussion not already addressed in Harrow's first installment. The steps Zinnia goes through felt similar to the first plot progression, and her self-discovery was clear from page one.

This time, established characters (Charm, Primrose) fade slightly from the narrative as their own stories and lives took precedence to Zinnia's less defined goals. This is natural step for them, but also means with the focus solely set on Zinnia without a sidekick present to banter about their feelings made the story feel shallow.

Alix is my queen forever and always. I loved this book! The audio was FANTASTIC. I wish I had listened to the first one on audio. These books are short, sweet, funny, imaginative, and more. Can't say enough about Alix and her ability make you feel like you're in another world. Thank you so much macmillan audio and netgalley!!!

I really liked book one, but I think it should have ended there. This book felt unnecessary and the ending was underwhelming. I was not invested in the romance at all, and the main character's treatment of her friends and family was offputting. I think it feels like a middle book, though I don't think there will be a 3rd one.

After five years travelling between fairytale multiverses, Zinnia Gray (Zin) is now an experienced rescuer of fairytale princesses from multiple variations of the Sleeping Beauty tale. Not only does she feel compelled to rescue and empower these women, but travelling to fairytale multiverses is keeping the genetic disease that will kill her at bay. But then one day looking into a mirror, she finds herself drawn into a different fairytale by the evil queen from Snow White who has discovered the fate that awaits her at the end of her story (dancing to her death in a pair of burning hot iron shoes) and wants Zin’s help to change the ending. The evil queen, who Zin nicknames Eva, tells Zin how she became that way and Zin finds herself sympathising with her and romantically attracted to her.

This twist from saving Princesses to helping evil queens allows Harrow to explore the gender politics implicit in fairytales, especially the way older women are often portrayed as villains. Although dealing with more serious topics, this novella is an enjoyable sequel to 'A Spindle Splintered', with Zin at her snarky, eye-rolling best.

I really enjoyed this series on a whole, and I wanted to LOVE this installment, but I just wasn't a big fan of Zinnia or her choices. But I do relate to having the hots for the villain ;)

This book is the second in a ”Fractured Fables” series by the author. “A Spindle Splintered” was a retelling of “Sleeping Beauty” that not only takes us through a door [one of Harrow’s favorite tropes] into the multiverse, but switches the story around to be a feminist manifesto with a lesbian slant.

Because Zinnia knew she was cursed to die on account of genetic damage that would presumably end her life by age 22, she identified with the story of "Sleeping Beauty." Starting in childhood when she insisted on Sleeping Beauty character bed sheets, to being a college student majoring in Folk Studies and Anthropology at Ohio University, she has made the story the theme of her life.

In this sequel, protagonist Zinnia Gray is now 26. In the five years since the previous novel ended, she has continuously moved among universes in an attempt to avoid her fate. She has been “diving through every iteration of Sleeping Beauty, chasing the echoes of my own shitty narrative through time and space and making it a little less shitty, like a cross between Doctor Who and a good editor.” She considers herself now not only to be “Zinnia Gray the Dying Girl,” but “Zinnia Gray the Dimension-Hopping, Damsel-Saving Badass.”

She explains that to understand, one should “picture the multiverse as an endless book with endless pages, where each page is a different reality.”

So far, she has met 49 varieties of Sleeping Beauty. Now, however, she suddenly gets pulled into “Snow White,” summoned by the Evil Queen using her magic mirror, because the queen also wants to get out of her story and escape her fate. Or, as she pleads with Zinnia, “Tell me how to get out of this damned story.” She has never even been given a name - she is always just “the villain, the stepmother, the wicked witch, the evil queen.” Zinnia starts calling her Eva, short for “evil queen.”

They start jumping through “Snow White” stories together, and in one, it is Snow White who is evil. Zinnia says: “A confession: I was totally expecting her to be ugly. Which is pretty fucked up of me, but in my defense, Western folklore persistently and falsely equates a character’s physical appearance with their inner morality…”

As Zinnia learns Eva’s story, she gets another lesson. Eva is the way she is for a good reason, and her backstory and her fate are tied into her perceived “failure” as a female. It is a more nuanced situation than the fairytales, recorded by men, ever suggested. Zinnia muses, “Oh, Jesus. I’m suddenly sick of these faux-medieval worlds and their shitty gender politics, all the pretty stories we tell about ugly worlds. A terrible sympathy [for Eva] crawls up my throat and lodges there, just behind my tongue.”

It also seems that Zinnia might be falling for Eva.

Eva confesses to Zinnia: “All I wanted was power. . . . I know how I must sound, what you must think of me, but I only mean power over myself. Power to make my own choices, and arrive at my own ends.”

Zinnia tells her, “It’s called agency. . . It’s like, the power you exert over your own narrative.” She adds: “So, the universe is like a book, right? And each world is like a page. And if you tell the same story enough times, you can bleed through to another page.”

Eva then asks a question that prompts an epiphany in Zinnia: “You mean - I must write down my own story?”

Zinnia comes to realize she has been trying to outrun her own ending, but maybe, just maybe, she can write a different one.

Evaluation: Although this book grew on me as I continued to read, I didn’t find it as satisfying as the first book. Zinnia seemed to be running out of steam, and I got the same impression about the author. Nevertheless, Harrow never fails to be thought-provoking, offering fresh enlightened perspectives on a number of subjects.

I LOVED "A Spindle Splintered," so I was VERY excited to get an advanced copy of the sequel from the publisher. And I remained excited through the entire book. THIS is the catharsis that Zinnia needed.

While book 1 was about Zinnia winning hope and independence (and getting her best friend a girlfriend), book 2 is about reconnecting with those who are willing to help. After playing the accomplished hero in dozens of iterations of Sleeping Beauty, Zinnia is set into a new story. New story, new rules, new companion. And this one isn't nearly so amicable as all the Beauty's were...even if Zinnia can't help but notice the Evil Queen's beauty is...much more to her taste.

Harrow really takes it out on the most common fairy tale retelling tropes, and it's kind of great. We retell these stories for a reason, but after a while, you do have to acknowledge that you're not getting much NEW from each retelling. Just a new coat of paint and maybe a little queerness finally acknowledged. Zinnia is BORED by the reused tropes in her Sleeping Beauty tales, and that doesn't change when she enters Snow White's realm. Zinnia has studied these stories to death in college, and even the biggest twist of the book doesn't come as that much of a surprise to her, because it's been DONE. Hell, done by Neil Gaiman, specifically.

But we, as readers, aren't so bothered. We're in on the joke. We got into the book with the understanding that it was a rehashing, and having the narrator herself in on the joke, as well, is nice. She's rolling her eyes just as much as we are.

But the ending does provide a little something new. I could be quite satisfied if this is where the series ends. Harrow gives us a satisfying, logical ending which takes advantage of both sets of fairy tales.

If you liked book 1, book 2 continues the magic. Pick it up!

This book was so good such a short read but I loved the dive into a new story! The idea of someone who can jump into fairy tales is such an interesting take for an adult book but so well executed

5/5

Professional rescuer and part-time substitute Zinnia Gray has spent the last five years traversing the multiverse, saving every damsel in distress that she possibly can. After a dozen or so rescues, weddings, and burned spindles, Zinnia has begun to grow tired of her role in rewriting the narrative, yet duty awaits her hand on the spindle. At an afterparty one rescue later, when Zinnia glances into a mirror, she sees another woman staring back at her, and falls into the last fairytale she ever expected, Snow White. Coming face to face with the fabled Evil Queen, desperate to escape her own fate, Zinnia is tasked once again with saving someone trapped by their story. Eva is convinced that Zinnia is the way out of her predestined ending, and is willing to do anything to change her future, that is if Zinnia can be convinced to save the last person in this world she would want to.

The Fractured Fables novellas draw to a close with A Mirror Mended, a sequel that ups the ante that A Spindle Splintered had previously left to be amended. Alix E. Harrow is back at it, drawing together an adventurous narrative crammed full of meaningful prose, and tied in with an expanded critique on storytelling and their villains. Where A Spindle Splintered previously intersected a conversation surrounding damsels in distress in folklore and their saviors, Harrow turns her attention to the villainization of women in her continuation of the series. More closely, The Evil Queen, a figure that has consistently captivated audiences with her jealousy and enacted rage against her stepdaughter for her supposed beauty. As a huge fan of evil women in the fantasy genre, the examined motivations, and background of a classic fairytale villain intrigued me, to say the least. Eva is a layered character, well-written and trapped by her own situation and predetermined role. Narrative agency is an issue that Zinnia has constantly battled, even from book one, and it was nice to see that transferred over to an iconic villain like the Evil Queen. Eva’s situation is very closely mirrored in Zinnia's, as they both are trapped by their role in the narrative of their story. The bond that grew between the two characters, as a result, made a lot of sense and was really satisfying to witness (falling for the hot villain was absolutely on-brand for Zinnia). I delighted in Eva and Zinnia’s back and forth snark alongside the deeper moments of multiverse chaos. The added tension from the multiverse fracturing and blending into one another propelled this installment to an entirely new level from the previous one in my mind. Once again I am left awed by Harrow’s storytelling ability and the complex twist in traditional fairytales. A Mirror Mended is a razor-sharp exploration of feminist agency and the weight of the roles we carry.

Trigger warnings: terminal illness, violence

Review is up on my Goodreads and will be posted on my blog closer to publication.

Sleeping Beauty is dragged through the multiverse to the lair of Snow White’s evil queen in this genderqueer fairy tale mashup that continues the (mis)adventures of Zinnia Gray (last seen in A Spindle Splintered), as she continues rescuing other Sleeping Beauties from death and fates worse. Searching for another to rescue while avoiding her own inevitable fate yet again finds Zinnia falling through the mirror into a tale not her own. She thinks she’s there to rescue Snow White but discovers that it’s the evil queen stepmother looking for power, agency, and a way out of her own inevitable destiny. The fine line between villainy and heroism blurs to nothingness as Zinnia learns that even a villain can be a hero and that love can conquer both tyranny and fate if you are willing to write your own story.. VERDICT Readers who love stories that twists narratives into knots will fall for Harrow’s fractured fairy tale where evil discovers the benefits that come of doing good.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for granting me an advance copy of this book in return for my honest opinion.

I have been waiting for this second installment for a long time it seems, so when I base NetGalley was offering an advance copy I immediately requested. I was so happy to be granted one.

The book was okay, although I did feel it could have been much more. It is a very short book and left me thinking why was it so rushed?

I was seriously disappointed in the length and poorly developed plot. I so wish could give one of my favorite authors 5 stars, but sadly, for me it is just a 3 star book. Felt like Harrow's heart just wasn't in this one. Such a disappointment.