A worthy second novel in the series. Zinnia is more headstrong in this iteration and a wonderful protagonist. I cannot wait to see where the story goes from here. Alix E Harrow is quickly turning into a must read author for me.

A quick reminder before I dive-in that a 3/5 rating is not a bad rating. It is good to neutral. Now, why do I clarify that? Because I am 100% sure many people will rate it higher and love this book. So, why is it a 3 for me and should you read it?

'A Mirror Mended' is an unexpectedly quirky Snow White (and a few others) retelling. I am a huge fan of fairy tales - classic, modern, and retellings. If you are too I would certainly give this one a read. It is set in modern times with a completely unique multiverse twist.

It is the second or "return to" story which I did not realize going in. You can certainly use the context clues to get there, but I belive reading the prior book would be beneficial to liking the characters. I did not like the main character. She's selfish and rude. I know there's a heart of gold (or something) in there but it just didn't work for me. The other characters did seem enjoyable but you really only get to know one of them (the evil queen, Eva, who is delightful) in this book. I presume the previous book gave you more insight into the others

Fortunately it is a really quick read; perhaps even novella sized (I read the ebook so I'm not entirely sure). So, love it, hate it, or just need to kill a few hours it won't take up much of your time.

Thank you @Netgalley and @torbooks for early access to this ARC in return for an unbiased and voluntary review.

I absolutely loved this book! A Mirror Mended is fairytales meets the multiverse with modern, queer characters on a journey of self-discovery!

This story is what I wish Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness had been! I know, fighting words. I did enjoy Doctor Strange 2, but the way A Mirror Mended handled the villain being bad and wanting more for her story is *chefs kiss*

I didn’t realize that this was actually the second in the series until I got this on NetGalley, so you definitely can read it without reading the first, but since I loved this so much I’m going to go back and read the first book now!

Do you love fairytales, meta-humour and fourth wall breaks?

THEN THIS IS THE BOOK FOR YOU!

Alix E. Harrow’s ‘A Mirror Mended’ is a sass fest sweeping the realms of fairytales gone awry.

Our MC Zinnia Gray is a literary traveller bouncing between narrative adaptations “like a cross between Doctor Who and a good editor.” Fleeing her own not-so-happy ending, she has spent years saving other Sleeping Beauties from the evils their fairytales throw at them.

UNTIL NOW. Suddenly our Sleeping Beauty is dragged into a story that isn’t hers. Now she’s out of her depth, at the mercy of an Evil Queen who mightn’t be so evil after all.

I’ll admit: I didn’t love this at the start. The narrative voice is overbearing, loud, and the pointless swearing is akin to a newbie comedian who thinks the F-bomb is funny. (I’m not prudish with curses, but when they're used as the sole punchline I find it unfunny and lazy writing.)

I also have a personal vendetta against our MC for referring to “that f—ked up Gaiman short story where Snow White is a vampire.”

YOU DID NOT JUST COME FOR MY FAVE GAIMAN. OH NO YOU DID NOT.

HOWEVER!

I put aside my fan rage (mostly), adapted to the crass-and-brash tone, and fell into the ride. And it was so. Much. FUN!

You can tell Harrow had a ball writing this. She happily and none-too-subtly drops references to Sondheim musicals, makes up fake academic articles, and (spoiler alert) uses the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index AS A PLOT DEVICE.

CAN YOU GET ANY MORE META?

There’s also a surprisingly deep message here about agency and relationships that I wasn’t expecting from a comedy. Props for sneaking a moral in there, Harrow.

Are twisted fairytales a new thing? No. Is meta humour that original? No. Am I bitter about Harrow making jabby jabs at Gaiman in her story about Sleeping Beauty and Snow White when Gaiman has already written a brilliant story about Sleeping Beauty and Snow White? YES I AM.

BUT! If you love fairytales, especially if you love Jasper Fforde, I’ll sing recommendations for this like a robin in a Disney flick. I’ll definitely be reading the rest of the series.

Huge thanks to @NetGalley and @torbooks for the ARC copy!

PUB DAY: 14/06/2022

A Mirror Mended is the sequel to the acclaimed novel, A Spindle Splintered, by award-winning author Alix E. Harrow. In the first book of the Fractured Fables series, we meet Zinnia Gray, the modern-day Sleeping Beauty. Destined to die before her twenty-first birthday, Zin has always led a life in fast-forward, graduating high school two years early and earning her college degree in only seven semesters. On her 21st birthday she deliberately pricks her finger on a used spinning wheel and discovers she has the ability to travel among the multiverses to meet - and save - other doomed sleeping beauties.

Fast forward to five years, where Zinnia Gray has been “adventuring through the multiverse" and saving sleeping beauties - 49 of them, to be precise! The “dimension-hopping, damsel-saving badass” is always running from one universe to the next, always running into trouble to save someone else while fiercely ignoring her own life - and looming death.

After one more wedding celebration, Zinnia prepares to find yet another princess to save when she looks into a mirror and sees someone else’s face. The stranger asks for help, and Zinnia is pulled through the mirror into a different type of story. Snow White’s evil queen is determined to escape her fate, and forces Zin through the mirror, across the multiverse, into a completely different set of rules. Neither a kiss not a prick of her finger will send Zin home, so she’s stuck helping the evil queen.

Zin is still fiercely snarky, but her mind is more open to the physics- or lack of - in the various worlds she falls into. She still hopes to find a better once upon a time, but is determined not to sit around and wait for it to come to her. Instead, she charges willingly into danger, hoping to save everyone else along the way.

Fantastically LGBTQ+ and funny, A Mirror Mended is another must-read.

I was so lucky and grateful to have gotten this book as an ARC from the author and publisher! When I read the description for A Mirror Mended, I was so excited to get my hands on it because it sounded right up my alley! A somewhat cynical girl uses her time to help fairy tail characters find their happy endings? Sign me up!

The humor had me sold and cracking up just in the short description. Unfortunately, I somehow got into my head that I could read this novel (the second installment) without reading the first. So my review may be slightly askew considering I didn't read the first book. However, I have tried my best to only judge the contents of this book and not what I likely missed by not reading the first book.

That being said, I think A Mirror Mended was a cute and quick read with quirky characters and an interesting plot line. The main character, Zinnia, typically helps princesses find their happily ever afters. But in this story, she finds herself helping the villain.

I really loved the idea behind this story, but I have a lot of thoughts. I think the book was just too short for the potential of the complex storyline to be fully realized. I think so much more could have been done with the story and to me it kind of felt crammed into 144 pages. While I did enjoy that it was a super fast read, I felt it left a lot to be desired. It just kind of felt like so much happened over such a short period of time that I found myself a little confused much of the time.

I also felt like the relationship between Zinnia and Eva was really forced and, as the reader, I didn’t really see the relationship build other than she thought she was hot. That’s all well and good, but what started as a schoolgirl crush turned into a full blown “stay in this world with me” romance in the span of what came off as just a few days.

Another kind of random thing that threw me were some of the descriptions. I didn’t really get a great sense of any of the characters’ appearances. And I had my husband cracking up when I asked him what color kidneys are — as the queen was described multiple times as wearing a “kidney-colored dress.” I just found it funny and just odd.

All of those notes aside, I did enjoy reading this! It was cute and sweet and I adored Zinnia’s dry and dark sense of humor. I guess overall my biggest critique was that I wanted more, and for that I gave this book 3.5 stars.

I really would like to go back and read the first book, A Spindle Splintered, to help fill in some of the blanks! If I do, I’ll be sure to write a review and revisit this one after! A Mirror Mended comes out June 14, 2022!

Really enjoyable fairytale retelling. I can certainly think of a lot of portal fantasies I’ve read and fairytale retellings aren’t scarce but the combination of the two makes this story feel fresh. Even though the author seems to be making a series out of these they have each stood well on their own merits. I’d be happy to read a few but I was just as happy with one and with two. Each story felt complete.

I received an ARC of this book from Tor in exchange for an honest review.

As part of my Hugo Awards read-through, I read A Spindle Splintered, the previous novella in this series, and thought it was a clever idea well worth an afternoon read. In A Mirror Mended, Alix Harrow delivers more of the same, blending a range of fairy tales with modern commentary for a fast-paced and engaging story that offers a potential conclusion to this series. My review will contain spoilers for A Spindle Splintered, since it's hard to talk about this very direct sequel without touching on earlier plot points, but rest assured that neither is a book that relies on a single twist or dramatic reveal to succeed. Still, if you'd rather head into the fairy-tale-verse on your own first, read no further!

Zinnia Gray, the modern-day Sleeping Beauty turned fairy-tale Miles Morales, is back for more multiversal adventures, with the focus turned from her own rapidly advancing illness to a potentially collapsing cosmos. A Mirror Mended pivots away from the parallel Sleeping Beauties and the in-depth exploration of how one trope can be taken in different directions to give readers a look at a broader set of fairy-tale characters, most significantly the nameless Evil Queen in Snow White. Eventually nicknamed "Eva," because it's a nicer-sounding version of "evil," this classic antagonist is given some new depth as Zinnia faces the consequences of her multiverse-hopping. While A Spindle Splintered ended with other universes presented as a potential hope for Zinnia to extend her life and, in doing so, find purpose helping other parallel Sleeping Beauties, A Mirror Mended opens with those adventures serving as a literal escape from Zinnia's closest friends. As an initial impetus for the plot, this idea lacks the ticking clock that made the previous book so effective, but this issue is largely remedied by almost immediately introducing Eva as both an antagonist who forces Zinnia to keep moving and a co-protagonist whose quest for freedom eventually becomes enough to impel the plot forward on its own. The author uses Eva to bring several modern-day storytelling tropes to her fairy-tale universe, some of which she cleverly lampshades in a conversation between Zinnia and one of her college professors, delivering a witty and readable take on the villain's perspective. In trying to complicate and extend the parallels between different fairy-tale characters and their roles, A Mirror Mended loses some of the Spider-verse team-up energy of A Spindle Splintered, but mostly manages to fill that gap with equally engaging and fast-paced adventures. Zinnia's voice and the combination of fairy tale stories with modern culture and sensibilities continue to make for a good combination, and while the book's ending is satisfyingly conclusive, a return to this world would be neither impossible nor begrudged.

Four out of five stars. Read A Spindle Splintered first; they're both short and quick reads, perfect for summer.

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I definitely enjoyed this installment more than the first in the series (which was also good). I loved the new love interest for Zinnia, and honestly, I'd totally devour a full-fledged novel of the two of them!

Readers were introduced to Zinnia Gray, a modern day Sleeping Beauty, in A Spindle Splintered. Now Zinnia is tired of traveling the multiverse rescuing doomed-to-snooze damsels …until she glimpses a gorgeous yet evil face in a mirror. Snow White’s Evil Queen has discovered how her story ends and she needs Zinnia’s help to secure herself a happily ever after.
Another refreshing and modern take on a classic fairy tale in the Fractured Fables series by Alix E. Harrow!
Thanks to Tordotcom and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. A Mirror Mended will be released June 14, 2022.

Super quick review since this is a novella.

I loved this just as much as book one in the series. Zinnia is a fantastic character. Brave, flawed, snarky and funny as all get out. I don’t want to say too much because it’s easy to spoil something when you’re reviewing such a short book. It is a modern take on the Snow White story and a refreshing new way of revisiting the villain origin story. It was an easy 5 star book. The only thing I didn’t like about it is that it is only a duology!! I could have read another few books in this series, but oh well. Alix E. Harrow is an auto-buy author for me these days so as long as she is still writing I won’t quibble about what she decides to give us. It’s all good.

Author Alex Harrow gifts readers with a second fractured fairy tale, A MIRROR MENDED, and another visit with Zinnia Gray and the characters from her previous book, A SPINDLE SPLINTERED. These books are so very wonderful; creative, inspired, joyful and just amazing to read. In this second fable, Zinnia grapples with the role of the evil Stepmother and how she struggles to achieve agency and perhaps a different ending. I can’t rave enough about this book and my enjoyment of it. It is a wonder and delight. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

With a terminal illness and borrowed time, Zinnia’s working hard to help Snow Whites all over the various realms. She’s been so busy helping others that she hasn’t taken the best care of herself. But her newest realm isn’t what she was expecting. The wicked queen has an agenda, and she needs Zinnia to succeed.

When your favorite author releases a new book, you know you will love it. Alix has infused humor into a delightful story with assertive female characters. What’s more, is the examination and modernization of traditional fairytales.

Each new realm brings surprises, and Alix keeps each variation fresh and creative. I’m pretty sure I read that Alix said this was the last book for this series, but I can only imagine how far she could take this if she changed her mind. Many thanks, Tor/Forge, for making me eternally happy sending this before release day!

“In Sleeping Beauty stories, I’ve come to recognize certain moments-tropes, you might call them, repeated plot points-that have an echo to them. Pieces of the story that have been told so many times they’ve worn the page thin: the christening curse, the pricked finger, the endless sleep, the kiss. You can almost feel reality softening around you, at those times.”

A MIRROR MENDED
Thank you, Macmillan/Tor-Forge, Alix E. Harrow, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book! It releases on June 14th, 2022!

A Mirror Mended by Alix E. Harrow is the 2nd book in the Fractured Fables series. In the first book, A Spindle Splintered, Zinnia Gray finds out she is can travel through the Fairy Tale Multiverse and spends her time rescuing all the Sleeping Beauties from a horrible fate. Now, she is getting tired. She is losing count of how many versions of Sleeping Beauty she has saved. Her best friend, Charm has married Prim and they have their own life and Zinnia is desperately trying to figure out where she belongs. When she falls through the Multiverse this time, she isn’t greeted by a Sleeping Beauty, but by the Evil Queen from Snow White. The Evil Queen, Eva, knows her fate and will do anything to escape it but she will need Zinnia’s help.

Alix E. Harrow is back and I couldn’t be more thrilled! Even though these Fractured Fables are just novellas, I will take what I can get. This second installment isn’t really a retelling per se but more of a story within the fairytale realm. I actually love the concept of the fairytale multi-verse, that there are all these fairytales in different worlds that have the same overall trope but each has its own unique signature.

Those who read the first book will love that Zinnia and her dark, sarcastic, yet witty sense of humor is back. She still has a complex illness that has her forced to face her own mortality but also figure out her place in this world while she is in it. It is hard when those around her started pursuing their own dreams and goals when she has no idea what is in store for her future. Even though this book is short, readers will see Zinnia struggle, isolate herself, confront her fears, and stop running away from her family.

I love this series and I hope there will be more! I love the representation and diversity that gives new views on the fairytales that we have all grown up with.

I received an ARC from the publisher and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.
With A Spindle Splintered being such a cool, original spin on fairy tale lore, I was excited, if a bit nervous about the sequel, A Mirror Mended. I could easily see it go either way, either succeeding or failing to capture what worked so well the first time.
And fortunately, it’s more the former. I love how this story picks up a while after the last one left off, with Zinnia now having experience as a “fairy tale fixer,” and having experienced multiple incarnations of Sleeping Beauty, and having grown tired of experiencing essentially the same narrative over and over. It perfectly sets up the potential for a new challenge, helping Snow White’s Evil Queen.
Just as with the first, the narrative unpacks the gender roles and stereotypes baked into these classic fairy tales. The Queen has always been positioned as the antithesis of everything the young princess stands for, given she’s older (at least past the first blush of youth), and society favors youth and beauty above all else.
I did find the romance a bit lackluster, as I didn’t fully find Zinnia’s bond with Eva nearly as compelling as the bonds formed in the first book. However, the way the themes were explored in other respects more than makes up for that.
I really enjoyed this one, even if I still prefer the first one. If you enjoyed the first, I recommend checking out this one.

I have not read anything quite like the Fractured Fables series. These short, sweet and sassy stories are a breath of fresh air. The way Alix weaves fairytale stories with modern day society and pop culture references is masterful.

Alix's 'Ten Thousand Doors of January' was one of two books I credit for dragging me back into reading and I can't speak enough about how amazingly cool it is to be able to read this early. This comes out June 14th and if you are looking for a quick witty read this summer this series is it.

Friends in my book club raved about the first book in this series, so I immediately requested the second when I saw it on NetGalley. I mistakenly thought each book was a standalone focusing on a different fairy tale. Teaches me to read the fine print first.

I’ve got such a weakness for snarky characters, which is why I immediately connected with Zinnia. As a long time professional fairy tale fixer and lapsed Sleeping Beauty, she’s more than ready for damsels and princesses to start taking control of their own narratives. When she sees Snow White’s Evil Queen staring back at her in a mirror, she’s pulled into an alternate world fairy tale (think Spiderverse). Sparks fly between them, and not in a good way at first, but it not surprisingly turns into an enemies to lovers kind of relationship. It’s also a nice reminder of how people shouldn’t let labels (or the parts they play in fairy tales) define them. You can be the hero of your own story.

Although backstory from the first book is sprinkled throughout this followup, I never felt like I completely understood what happened or much about Zin’s disease. I’d recommend reading A Spindle Splintered first. At novella length, these books can easily be read in a couple hours or so.

If you enjoy snarky, self-deprecating main characters, twists on traditional fairy tales, and clever writing, this is a fun way to spend a few hours.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

If you made it through A Spindle Splintered, expect more of the same in A Mirror Mended. A dying girl (who can barely go a few pages without reminding the reader that she’s still dying) goes through unfortunate lengths to seem relatable to the modern reader. With mentions of pop culture references (some of which will be outdated before publication date) Zinnia attempts to tell the reader everything she knows about the “multiverse” on her journey to rescue other iterations of Sleeping Beauty to be rescued from their fates. If you’re expecting this to be like any of Harrow’s other works, prepare to be disappointed. However, if you’re looking for a light hearted short story retelling Sleeping Beauty, then this might be just what you’re looking for.

The novella length feels a little awkward for this series - enough time to introduce concepts or characters, but not enough to go into satisfying depth. That said, anything by Alix Harrow is a pleasure to read, and I love the exploration of villain as anti hero. I wish this series had been explored as short stories cut down for maximum impact or expanded to longer stories.

What a wonderful fantastical ending to a fun and thought provoking read. I really enjoyed the story of Zinnia and the changing from the fairy tale of Sleeping beauty to the fairy tale of Snow White. The multiverse of the stories and the characters she meets and saves.

This is the second in the series and I luckily had read the first. Which is important to really enjoy the characters and their back stories.