Small things like this could be overlooked if she had some mental or personality characteristic I could identify with or get to like. Also she has an amazing singing voice (I can't sing to save my life). Superficially, Aza is tall, wide, has dark hair and white skin (I'm short, small, blond, and tan easily). I had a hard time enjoying this book at all to start with because the protagonist and I could not be more different. Which is why my very favorite books of all time are the books that have strongly developed protagonists that I can identify with well in some way or another. When I read a book, especially when I read fantasy, I find myself mentally putting myself in the place of the protagonist. Why is it easier to notice and worry over an extra five pounds, when the real problem is a dissatisfaction with ourselves and a belief that if we were other than what we are in every respect, things would be better? Levine poignantly portrays the incredible harmfulness of envy and shows how hatred of self can come to destroy our worlds, if we let it. We are constantly distracted by the idea that our external weaknesseses hold us back from true happiness when really it is the inability to accept our imperfection that is the bane of our existance. Her pursuit to correct her one weakness begins to cause major problems in her life and those of others. She finds her appearance so offensive that she believes that she causes pain to anyone who has to look at her.īut another character, Ivi, is so obsessed with the idea of beauty that she actually does begin to destroy people in order to appear to the best advantage. She gets to the point where she will do almost anything to be beautiful.
What is interesting about this story is that Aza (the heroine) has one of the best singing voices in the kingdom, but thinks and worries more about her ugly face. Women are so good at obsessing over their weaknesses - an extra ten pounds, a lower grade in math than someone else, etc. But Levine paints the two characters so you can see how one, in coming to accept herself as she is, finds happiness and bestows grace on those around her, and how the other, in hating herself and trying to be other than what she is, ends up destroying the kingdom.
One, however, becomes the villain, and the other, the heroine.
I pulled this book off of the Young Adult shelves expecting some light fiction, but I really enjoyed some of the deeper meanings behind this story! Yes, it is a retelling of Snow White, but with insights that really apply to most women today.įirst of all, the two most prominent female characters are alike in that they find themselves unacceptable- like two sides of a coin, even their names are like each other.
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