Gilded by Marissa Meyer
Narrated by Rebecca Soler
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Publication Date: November 2, 2021
Genre: Teens & YA, Fantasy

Gilded by Marissa Meyer is an amazing retelling of Rumpelstiltskin. It is captivating and brilliant and I could not get enough of it!

Once again, Marissa Meyer had created a world that draws the reader in that is filled with a vibrancy, wonder, and magic!

I did not want Gilded to end! I loved the characters and the story was filled with so many interesting things! It is fast paced and filled with so many twists and turns, and an unexpected romance. This book truly has it all! I am looking forward to the next book because I need to return to this world! I will definitely be re-reading this book!

I highly recommend this book to fantasy fans and fairy tale lovers! You will love every minute of it!!!

The narration by Rebecca Soler was breathtaking! She gave each character a voice and added another dimension of suspense to the book.

I'm so grateful to Marissa Meyer, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this ARC ebook in exchange for my honest review.

2.5 stars rounded up

Honestly, this was disappointing. I was SO excited to see Meyer return to fairytale retellings and while there are a lot of elements I liked here, as a book this feels very bloated and repetitive at over 500 pages, AND it's apparently not a standalone. I wonder a bit if the success she has had as an author has led to editors not pushing her as hard to make cuts. This could have been a fantastic book, drawing on various elements of German mythology, clearly well-researched, with a compelling premise for a Rumplestiltskin retelling. But it either needed to be a standalone or like 300 pages long. It feels repetitive, meandering, and while there were scenes I was into, I spent a lot of time being kind of bored and wondering when the plot would pick up. And then when intense violence occurred, even toward children, it felt like it was more for shock value than being earned.

The audio narration is very good, it's just WAY too long! The bones of this is something great, but as a novel it was lackluster and while the ending is quite the provocative cliffhanger, I'm not sure I care enough to continue if the next book is going to be just as long for a relatively modest payoff. And I preordered a signed copy! *sigh* I received an audio review copy via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Gilded is a dark amalgamation of the Rumplestiltskin fairy tale with mythology. As enticing as the summary sounded, the actual execution of the book left something to be desired. As with Meyer’s other books, this one weighs in at about 500 pages. Staying motivated to continue to read was challenging, due to the slow moving plot. The characters felt flat, which also created a sense of the book dragging. The feel of this one is a little similar to Heartless, in that it’s darker than the Lunar Chronicles, and seems written for an audience that is older than the intended audience of the Lunar Chronicles. Readers should also go into the book knowing that it is not a standalone, so there will not be complete resolution at the end.

In terms of the audiobook quality, I think Rebecca Soler was a great choice as narrator, since she has narrated other Marissa Meyer books in the past. She does a fabulous job of using different intonations for each character, making the book seem as if there is a multi-person cast.

Thanks go to NetGalley and MacMillan Children’s and MacMillan Audio for the opportunity to read and listen to an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I... don't quite know how to review this. It started out fabulously. I was SO hooked for the first, oh, 25-35% but then... I just lost interest. I was interested enough to keep listening, but when I put it down it was really hard to make myself pick it up again because I just stopped caring about any of the characters.

The main problem I think is that the story is too long and it really drags from maybe 35-70% and only gets somewhat interesting again toward the end. But... all the "twists" at the end are far too predictable and really I could see the whole thing coming much earlier. I was hoping there would be some surprise twists but.... nope. I'm also vaguely interested in the sequel just to know how it ends but more dreading it because the first should never have been spun out as long as it was and unless they introduce a whole lot of new information there isn't nearly enough story left for a second book of this length. Really it should have been trimmed down and made into a standalone.

I loved the first part, with Serilda telling stories to the children, but I was never sold on the love story. It was like, "we've spent three nights together where I tell stories and he spins straw into gold and now we're madly in love and can't keep our hands off one another even though we're both severely touch starved and really don't know each other at all." Like, they've hardly even talked to one another. And unfortunately the second half of the book focused rather heavily on the love story. Gild also has about as much personality as a potato, which is glaringly obvious when comparing him to Serilda, who has buckets of personality.

I don't even need much obvious romance in a book to ship it -- a hint here and there is plenty -- but you've got to give me more to work with than a snatched few hours once a month, hardly any talking, and some frantic making out. A grand love story that is not.

The best moments were with the children and I really wish there had been more time spent with them.

*Thanks to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for providing an audio arc for review.

I have mixed feelings about this book.

I love Marissa Meyer. She is the QUEEN of retellings. I also love Rumpelstiltskin. t's one of my favorite fairy tales. But this felt like it dragged... so, so much. I would getto a plot point, think "oh, thank god it's almost over," then look at the audiobook percentage and realize I was only 40%, 60%, or 80% through the book. When I finally made it to the end, I was drained.

I started it leading up to Halloween, which felt on point, and then I realized it's publishing on November 2nd, which felt like a mistake for the publisher.

I was really excited for a new fantasy book from Marissa Meyer since I'm a huge fan of The Lunar Chronicles. While that series has some dark moments for sure, Gilded really steps it up into a darker and slightly more adult fantasy. I really did want to love this book, but ultimately it just wasn't for me. I felt that it was probably a hour or two longer than it needed to be because some moments felt really repetitive. There also seemed to be so many different stories happening at once, but with long stretches of nothing really happening at times. I just wish things were a bit more concise, especially since this is clearly leading into a series. I feel like some things could have been cut or left for the next book in the series.

I did enjoy the audiobook narrator and they created many unique voices so I could easily tell who was talking. They kept me engaged even during some of the duller parts of the book.

I am a huge fan of Marissa Meyer's other books, so I was excited to read her latest book. I really enjoyed the characters and the world that is created in Gilded. The author did a great job of creating an atmosphere that is haunting and slightly frightening. I could feel the fear in the villagers on the hunting moons.

I will say that the violence and gore was a little bit more than I prefer to read. It wasn't enough to make me stop reading though, I just had to know what happened!

The audiobook version was very enjoyable, the narrator did a great job.

Thank you to NetGalley, MacMillan Audio, and the author for a chance to read this book in exchange for my honest opinions.

I love Marissa Meyer so this book was very high up on my list of books I want to read this year. I really enjoyed this book. I don't always love ya epic fantasy as it can be poorly done but this book was really good. I enjoyed the setting as well as the characters. This book has a ton of great things going for it. This is a book perfect for fans of Sarah J. Mass and Holly Black.

I DNF this book at 30%. The story was fine. My reasoning for not continuing to read the book is that I posted on my Instagram story that I was starting this book and got a few messages about the authors problematic past in previous books. No comment on this book and I haven’t read any of the others but I can’t promote this. Poor handling of race AND mental health is a hard no for me. I did not post any reviews.

A wonderful re-telling of Rumplestiltskin; one where the good-weaver isn’t a little hobgoblin. Although the way this ended, I hoping for a sequel. And honestly,,how could you not end that story where it’s supposed to end? Why keep everyone in suspense? A ,lot of beautiful tales were woven through the main plot, thus making it way longer than it needed to be. However, since Marissa,Meyer is the queen of fairytale re-telling, I guess she took the opportunity to interconnect other stories. Just go into this with an open mind. It’s very interesting and I’ll definitely be reading the sequel.

*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this early e-audio version.*