Jane Yolen is one of those authors I feel I should love more than I do. I have enjoyed her books, some of them quite a bit, and she wrote me and my sister a terribly nice email when we were kids. But I always go into her books feeling that they will be the perfect fit for me, and then instead they are like that one dress you buy because you think it’s going to be the perfect work dress, and it looks pretty but the pockets are slightly uneven and the way the neckline is prevents you from wearing any of your regular bras with it and it rides up a little bit on your hips so you can’t really wear it on days when you have meetings.
Snow in Summer is pretty good. It’s a retelling of the Snow White story, set in mid-1900s Appalachia. Snow in Summer, called Summer, is seven years old when her mother dies. For four years her father sinks deeper into his sadness, and Summer is cared for primarily by her mother’s cousin, Nancy. Then one day, her father comes home–seemingly happy again–with a new stepmother.
The sense of dread in this book is incredible. As soon as Stepmama shows up and starts calling Summer “Snow” instead of “Summer,” you are taken over with tension. Stepmama’s malevolence toward Summer (now always called Snow) manifests in a dozen different ways, and Summer isn’t able to predict what they will be. When Stepmama tells Summer that she may attend church with Aunt Nancy until she turns fourteen, at which point she must attend Stepmama’s church instead, you aren’t exactly sure what Summer should be afraid of, but you’re terrified of whatever it is. This tension builds and builds and builds until the crucial moment, when Stepmama abandons Summer with a boy she calls Hunter.
So two-thirds of the book is this rising, rising, rising dread, and that’s very good, but the final third was a let-down. Once Summer reaches the dwarves’ house, the rest of the fairy tale plays out quickly. The ending feels too easy: I didn’t want Summer to have to be rescued by a Prince Charming we hadn’t met yet (and she isn’t), but the way Stepmama eventually meets her defeat happens so fast. I wanted the battle to be more battley. I wanted the ascending levels of danger from the fairy tale: First the ribbon, then the comb, then the apple. I am an unabashed partisan for the ascending tricolon.
Other reviews: Kirkus and Publishers Weekly were both quite positive! The Book Smugglers felt more like I did about it.
And hey, I can’t be the only one: What authors seem like they would be a perfect fit for you, but aren’t?