A Reader's Guide to Books and Reviews

Title: Fairest of All: A Tale of the Wicked Queen (Villains #1)
Author: Serena Valentino
Format: Epub
Rating: 2.5/5
Status: Finished
Reading Date: March 14, 2018 to March 16, 2018
Book Summary: The tale of the young princess and her evil stepmother, the Wicked Queen, is widely known. Despite a few variations from telling to telling, the story remains the same—the Queen was jealous of the girl’s beauty, and this jealousy culminated in the Queen’s attempt on the sweet, naive girl’s life.

Another tale far less often spoken of is the one that explains what caused the Queen to become so contemptuously vile. Still, some have attempted to guess at the reason. Perhaps the Queen’s true nature was that of a wicked hag and her beautiful, regal appearance a disguise used to fool the King. Others claim that the Queen might have hated the girl for her resemblance to the King’s first wife. Mostly, the Queen is painted as a morally abhorrent woman who never loved another being during the course of her miserable life.

In fact, the theories about exactly what cause the Queen’s obsessive vanity and jealous rage are too numerous to catalog. This book recounts a version of the story that has remained untold until now. It is a tragic tale of love and loss, and it contains a bit of magic. It is a tale of the Wicked Queen…
Book Review: Are you a fan of Snow White and the Seven Drawfs or Once Upon A Time?

Always wanted to know what made the Queen the way she was?

Then this book may just be for you!

In a land far away, we find our villainess-to-be as the daughter of a mirrormaker. During the course of her life, her father was abusive to her, belittling her for being the reason behind the death of her mother. One day, a king comes by and admires her beauty but the young queen believes he is just merely lying to her with flattery. When her father dies, the king marries the Queen. For a wedding gift, he gives her the mirror her father made before his death but the mirror unsettles the queen immensely. There is just something about it. Then the King dies and the Queen begins to change. She starts to become depressive and hates any sort of happiness. Then the mirror and hags push her toward the darkness until it has pretty much swallowed up.

This book is depressing and sad. Here I thought I would find a woman like the evil queen named Regina from Once Upon A Time. Instead, I find one that was the complete opposite of her. She lacked character, backbone, and confidence. I understand that abuse can do things to a person and I can understand that this is a character that feels that any sort of flattery is a lie, but I was hoping that there would be something - anything - that would bridge her to the queen of the movie. It just wasn't there.

The premise of this story was rather interesting. I love Disney movies and this one was a favorite of my Mom's. She has always loved the Evil Queen since as far as I can remember. Unfortunately this story did little justice to the beginnings of the queen. While the orginial story dealt with obsessive vanity, this one dealt with the abuse and lack of any self-esteem.

As for the story itself, the premise was interesting and one I think I would have enjoyed more if there had been a bit more character development with the queen. There was no name given to her and her character really didn't feel like it connected to the character of the Disney's Snow White, more like this character simply stepped in from the shadows and took over. I was thoroughly disappointed in this book.

Will this deter me from reading the rest of the books from the series? No I am planning on reading the others soon.