SERIES REVIEW: Tales from the Kingdoms by Sarah Pinborough

At less than 200 pages each, I thought it would be a lot easier to combine all three of these books into one review - there's not really enough to say about them individually!

'Poison' - 2 stars

"I want to take his power. Men take it so much for granted. You need to learn that the only way to wield it in the kingdoms is by making a great match." 

I really enjoyed the first half of 'Poison'.
The beginning is quite repetitive: Snow White's father goes off to war, and her stepmother repeatedly states that she's going to make people fear her, she's going to rule them with fear, everyone will fear her, blah, blah, blah... But once you get through that, the pace picks up. Everyone knows the story of Snow White so the approaching events are obvious, but the way that Sarah Pinborough gets to them is unique, bringing in other fairytale characters including Aladdin and the witch from Hansel and Gretel.
'Poison' is a very feminist retelling. Lilith, the evil queen, uses the male gaze to get her own way, and isn't afraid of manipulating men with her beauty. Forced to marry the king despite being only four years older than his daughter, she's making the best of it.
In her own twisted way she tries to teach Snow to be stronger before it's too late, but their relationship is too strained. Snow doesn't have any interest in marriage, and openly mocks the men that she thinks might propose to her, and Lilith is bitter about this because she didn't have a choice. Snow also wakes up after the apple in her throat is dislodged, not needing true love's kiss at all.
But then it all goes downhill. The previously independent Snow is proposed to by the prince who has fallen in love with her unconscious body, and her reply is "Why not?". For someone who was so adamantly against marriage a few pages ago, this is a bit of a twist! Snow's not a virgin - having slept with the huntsman earlier in the story - which disgusts the prince. She apologises profusely for concealing the truth from him. She was so strong-willed before eating the apple, but quickly shrivels into a meek and mild character. It makes no sense.
There's a nice twist: the prince gets the cursed apple made into juice, so that when Snow drinks it the apple can't be easily dislodged from her throat. It's certainly the most evil ending to a retelling that I've read!
Bonus points for the fact that Snow performs oral sex on the prince and then makes him reciprocate it before they can consummate their marriage - female pleasure definitely needs to be normalised.

'Charm' - 3 stars

"Princes are just men. Mainly not very good ones. And a castle can't give a girl like you what the woman inside will want." 

This is a rather brutal Cinderella retelling, with scenes of self-mutilation and near rape: not for the faint of heart.
Lilith's back, masquerading as the fairy godmother. She allows Cinderella to go to the ball, on one condition: she has to search every inch of the castle once she's won the prince's heart. Working with the huntsman, who has received a brief reprieve from life as a mouse, Lilith is desperate to track down the missing Snow.
Cinderella charms the prince by wearing her enchanted diamond shoes, but life in the palace isn't all fun and games. The prince is quickly disinterested by her, her step-sister Rose has to walk with a cane after attempting to cut off one of her toes, and she can't find anything that could be of interest to the fairy godmother.
Passing information on to the huntsman every night is probably the worst chore. He's arrogant and abrasive, and Cinderella hates the way he's constantly laughing at her. She wants her life to go back to normal, and wishes she'd never wished to go to the ball in the first place.
Surprisingly, this book had a happy ending.
Cinderella is the girl of the huntsman's dreams, and she realises she was annoyed at him because she was falling in love.
Rose gets the prince, and starts to change the kingdom for the better.
The new power couple find Snow and get her back to Lilith, before walking off into the sunset for their happily ever after (making love a couple of times in the forest for good measure).
I thought this was going to be the moment when Lilith would murder Snow and all of the warm and fuzzy feelings would be destroyed, but that wasn't the case. Instead of killing her, she kisses her... And true love's kiss wakes her from the curse.
A LESBIAN ROMANCE IN A FAIRYTALE RETELLING?
FINALLY!
(Well, other than the fact that they both have heterosexual marriages and multiple sexual relationships in 'Poison' and this only happens in the epilogue, making it feel more like a last minute aside than a planned plot...)
The attempts at diversity bumped this book up to a three star, but the fact that there's a lesbian romance that feels like an afterthought and a disabled character who has special shoes crafted to make her limp non-visible both make me too apprehensive to bump it any higher.
Cinderella also annoys me with her attitude towards Buttons (Robin Hood). He has a crush on her but she isn't interested, and she states that she's not going to lead him on or encourage him. Within a couple of pages, she's got his hand up her skirt and she's letting him get her off... Good for female empowerment, not so good at sticking to her word and not using him.

'Beauty' - 4 stars

"I should kiss her," he murmured. 

"No, you really shouldn't." Petra glared at him. "That would be all manner of wrong. If someone kissed me without my permission - handsome travelling prince or not - I'd punch them."

This is the most satisfying of the three installments.
Set before the start of 'Poison', the events of 'Beauty' tie up all of the loose ends. The prince's father sends him on an adventure and hires the huntsman to keep his son safe. The end of their quest puts them in the forest where we meet them in the first book, effectively looping the trilogy in an endless cycle.
This story introduces us to more fairytales, meeting Beauty (who is both Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast) and Petra (who is Red Riding Hood and a gender-swapped version of Peter from Peter and the Wolf). Petra is the most realistic character in the entire series, and I loved her dry humour and witty comments (even if she did get far too soppy when she met her true love).
There are no random masturbation scenes in this novel, which is something I'm grateful for. I was pleased to see it included in the first book because it's not something that's regularly featured in novels, but Sarah seemed to be using it whenever the plot slowed down, making the previous stories move even slower.
This is certainly the most daring of the three. The violence isn't gratuitous because it adds to the plot, but if you're offended by people getting brutally murdered, or don't want to read a book that launches you right into the middle of an orgy, it might be worth leaving this one alone.

Overall, this series gets three stars.
I was interested by the storytelling choices that Sarah made while attempting to make her mark on the classic fairytales, but I wasn't too impressed with the execution. Not much seemed to happen, and I think I'm going to have forgotten about the events of all of these by the end of the month...

'The Dollhouse' by Nicole Thorn

*This review will contain spoilers!*

First things first, I need to say a huge thank you to Curiosity Quills publishing for allowing me access to this title in exchange for an honest review. 

'The room was pitch black as I lay in bed, and my heart pounded against my ribs as I waited. It was my turn tonight. Any second now, I would see a shadow of feet under my door. The hinges would squeak. The door would open wide. He could get into my bed.'

I started reading this on the bus on the way to Oxford, and shudders were instantly running down my spine. The opening few chapters of this book make it impossible to tear your eyes away - I almost forgot to make notes!

Seven years ago, Riley, Layla, Adalyn and Kylie were kidnapped by a man who forced them to call him Master and kept them captive in his Dollhouse. Until the night the girls decide it's time to end it all: either their Master dies, or they'll set the place on fire and burn to death with him.
They manage to get free, and after a whirlwind couple of hours they're reunited with their own families. Riley gets to meet her new little brother, Kylie's parents are back together and Adalyn discovers her mother died just a couple of weeks before they escaped. But it's difficult to readjust to life on the outside, particularly because the four girls are separated from each other for the first time in almost a decade.
Riley's parents don't want her to see the others anymore: they think it'll be too hard for Riley to be reminded of such a harrowing experience every time they see each other. But her parents also don't want her to hang out with Wilson, the boy who lives next door and the only one who isn't treating her like the fragile doll the Master saw.
Tackling the question of what exactly makes people family and how mental scars can be much deeper than physical ones, 'The Dollhouse' doesn't shy away from discussing serious topics, putting itself firmly at the higher end of the young adult age bracket.

I hate to say it, but I was bored almost constantly while reading this. I loved the first 25%, but then scenes kept repeating and I felt as though I was getting stuck in a loop.
Wilson and Riley's relationship moves very slowly. I appreciated that he was very respectful of the fact that she'd been locked away and hadn't ever had a romantic relationship, but they have the same conversation multiple times and it's exasperating.
She wants more and he refuses, then he caves, then he feels guilty, then she tells him it was fine and she wants more, but he refuses... Over and over, repeating the same sequence of events.
It's a great excuse to insert more passionate dry humping scenes, but it didn't feel natural at all, and I found myself skim reading some of the hotter scenes because they were repetitive and nothing new was happening.
In all honesty, their entire relationship felt grating. I don't appreciate characters that use pet names on people they've just met - particularly girls that they're determined they aren't flirting with - so Wilson constantly referring to Riley as 'babe' and 'sweetheart' made me feel very uncomfortable and a little nauseous.
However I was happy to see female masturbation represented. Male masturbation features regularly in YA but I've never stumbled across female characters exploring their sexuality alone before. Equal opportunities for pleasure, yo!
This book was overwhelming, with too much being dealt with in an awkwardly paced way. The scenes between Riley and Wilson drag, and there are multiple rambling inner monologues of Riley wishing she'd never been taken and wondering what her life would have otherwise been like - things that didn't really need stating, because who would be grateful that they were kidnapped? (Not discounting Stockholm Syndrome sufferers, of course).
But when there's a lot going on (such as a fire towards the end of the novel and Riley getting involved in a car accident and almost drowning) the scenes are very brief and are hardly explored. The important scenes are rushed and it's disorienting. This is a book trying to deal with first love, family relationships, friendship, suicide, PTSD, and actually attempting to wrap it all up at the end with a epilogue... It might have been better if there'd been less included, to make the things that were - such as the brilliant discourse regarding pharmaceutical treatment vs. counselling trips in dealing with mental issues - more effective.

'The Dollhouse' feels more NA than YA, so if you're a younger reader and don't feel comfortable reading sexually tense scenes then you should avoid this one.
However, if you're interested in reading a novel that's a bit more mature and unflinchingly tackles serious topics, this is the one for you. The beginning is very high octane but the pace quickly diminishes, making it a slow burner - don't expect to be flying through this novel, because it does take a bit of work to get it finished.
It'll also appeal to you if you're a fan of 'Pretty Little Liars' - 'The Dollhouse' is a very similar concept, even if only for the first couple of chapters.