Reading
#ClassicandContemporary book challenge: December
#ClassicandContemporary book challenge:
Little Women and Midnight in Everwood
Midnight in Everwood
Author: M. A. Kuzniar
Genre: Fantasy, Romance
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: October 2021
Rating: 
A wintry re-imagining of The Nutcracker, this cosy book blends escapist fantasy with a darker, feminist edge. With an enchanting atmosphere, it questions the constraints placed on women’s lives. Silk gowns, snowfall, sugared pastries, candlelit theatres, glittering palaces, they all shimmer on the pages. This books feels like stepping into a snow globe, the magic is quite immersive.
The story follows Marietta Stelle, a young woman in 1906 Nottingham whose dreams of becoming a ballerina don’t match her family’s expectations. A mysterious new neighbour arrives and a sinister plot unfolds, leading Marietta to Everwood – a fantastical kingdom of ice, beauty and danger. Although it all seems like a fairy tale, covered in confectionary imagery, it is not all so sweet after all. Kuzniar has some deeper underlying themes beneath the sugary surfaces. Female autonomy, for example, as Marietta struggles to claim her own life, the cost of beauty in the face of Everwood – though gorgeous, its perfection comes at an ugly price. Captivity and resistance are also themes that the author explores, as gilded cages can be just as oppressive as obvious ones. All of this gives the story more weight than a simple fairy-tale retelling.
However, to balance things off, like in the book, it is not all sugar, spice and everything nice. It was a bit tedious to get through the dialogues and the descriptions, though beautiful, can get too long too quickly. The flowery prose and speech of the characters makes it all sound a bit forced and unnatural. The overall storyline is not thought through in much detail, I think, as I felt the plot wasn’t leading us anywhere most of the time. This was disappointing, considering the book is a retelling of The Nutcracker, and I was expecting a bit more depth and more action in the fantasy world. A nice addition was the layer of art seen as liberation, because Marietta uses dance to claim back some agency over her life and her choices. It becomes a form of expressing herself and remains her anchor even in the enchanted kingdom, a reminder of who she is behind all that glitters.
The frosted aesthetic of Midnight in Everwood reminded me of The Nutcracker with a dose of The Night Circus. The tone shifts from cosy to unsettling as Everwood reveals its darker side and becomes more and more menacing. What works in this novel is Marietta’s emotional world – she is ambitious, quietly rebellious and seems delicate at first, but reveals a tougher spirit later. Her journey is not so much about defeating a villain as it is about reclaiming her voice, slowly gaining courage and bravery as the story unfolds.
I am leaving you with the blurb of this atmospheric fantasy read with a historical twist below.
In the darkness of night, magic awaits…
It was a rainy day that the magic came, and once magic has entered your life, you stay in its glittering clutch forever.
Nottingham, 1906
Marietta Stelle longs to be a ballerina but as Christmas draws nearer, her dancing days are numbered. At the wishes of her family, she will be obligated to marry and take up her place in society in the New Year. But when a mysterious new toymaker, Dr Drosselmeier, purchases a neighbouring townhouse, it heralds the arrival of magic and wonder in her life. Although Drosselmeier’s magic is darker than Marietta could have imagined…
When he constructs an elaborate theatrical set for her final ballet performance, Marietta discovers it carries a magic all of its own. As the clock chimes midnight, Marietta finds herself walking through a land of snow-topped fir trees leading to a frozen sugar palace silent with secrets and must find a way to return home.
In the darkness of night, magic awaits and you will never forget what you find here…
Little Women
(mini review)
Author: Louisa May Alcott
Genre: Coming of age, Bildungsroman, YA, Historical Fiction
Publisher: Roberts Brothers
Year: 1868 (1st volume); 1869 (2nd volume)
Rating:
Little Women is one of my favourite classics. A heart-warming and inspiring coming-of-age story that explores the lives of four sisters as they navigate their way through life’s challenges, struggles and triumphs in Civil War-era New England. Reading this book in December was a great choice – it felt like a warm hug, so cosy and warm. I really enjoyed it and had so much fun with the March sisters. Jo is my favourite – smart, free spirited and adventurous, with a fiery temper and a kind heart. Which one are you? 😀
What I like about this book is its sincerity. Alcott doesn’t romanticise girlhood and sisterhood but shows it as it is. The March sisters fight, fail, dream too big, hurt and forgive each other, and keep going. Because Alcott presents them as flawed, their lives feel real. Just because they are sisters, it doesn’t mean they don’t feel jealousy, rivalry or resentment towards one another, they are human after all. But Alcott’s novel shows that love outlasts all these negative feelings, and that’s what makes it a timeless piece of literature.
What’s more, I really like that Little Women remains one of the greatest classics because it recognises that the inner lives of girls are as rich, complex and deserving to be written about as any epic adventure. Its timelessness is also evident in the emotions the novel depicts: the ache of wanting more, the comfort of family, the pain of loss, the courage to grow. The domestic scenes are vivid and charming – Christmas morning, amateur theatricals, the shared secrets. It is a tender, wise and quiet book that speaks louder than many other books across generations.
Something to say about the #ClassicandContemporary reading challenge:
First of all, a huge thank you for sticking around, for reading all the books I recommended alongside me or if you have simply follow along. If you have taken part in the challenge, that means you have now read (at least) 24 books this year, so well done, you! Should I organise another one of these soon?
