Book Review: ‘Fairest of All’ by Serena Valentino
Just why did Snow White’s stepmother hate her so much? Did she always resent Snow White, or was there a time when the two were close? In her novel, Fairest of All, Serena Valentino weaves a tale of love and death that shows us just how much fear can warp our perceptions and misguide our actions.
[Warning: My review of Fairest of All contains some spoilers!]
Serena Valentino goes into the past to explain the events of Snow White
In Fairest of All, we meet the Wicked Queen before she ever becomes Snow White’s stepmother. She’s just a regular girl, the daughter of the best mirror maker in the kingdom. But when the King sees her, he falls madly in love and makes her his wife. At first, everything is wonderful. The Queen is kind and loving. She does everything she can to be a good mother to Snow and a good wife to the King. They are a truly happy family, and it seems they have a happily ever after.
But nothing that good lasts. The King’s odd cousins come to visit, and when they seem to threaten Snow, the Queen throws them out of the castle. From there, everything goes downhill. The odd cousins give the Queen a “gift” in appreciation of her hospitality —a mirror that contains a trapped spirit. The spirit is the Queen’s own (abusive) father, and in her need to gain his acceptance, she begins asking him questions. He is magically compelled to always tell the truth, so she asks him who the fairest in the land is. When he tells her that she is the fairest in the land, the Queen feels a sense of worth. But then she also feels fear, because what if one day she isn’t the fairest in the land? Then the King dies and the Queen is plunged into a deep depression.
As the Queen’s mind slowly cracks under the weight of her grief and fear, she becomes a warped version of herself. She still loves Snow White, but that love manifests in strange and dangerous ways. Is it possible that killing Snow White is really an act of mercy? To an unhinged mind, it is.
A method to the madness in Fairest of All
What I like best about Fairest of All is that we get to see why the Wicked Queen became wicked in the first place. I don’t really like evil characters that are evil just because they’re evil. No one is really born evil. Okay, a few people are born evil. However, most people are born normal, and something happens that prompts them to make poor choices. I want to know what got a character to that point. Being born evil is boring; becoming evil is interesting. Becoming evil while thinking you’re actually good is fascinating.
And that’s exactly the story we get with Fairest of All. The Queen starts off as a good person. She wants to be a good stepmother to Snow White, and she is at first. Her father was an abusive jerk who gave her some mental hangups about her looks, but she was too busy being kind and happy to let that really interfere with her life.
But then she suffers a tragic blow. The man she loves is gone, and she doesn’t know how to keep going. What finally pulls her from her bed is the need to be the fairest (also known as daddy issues). It is how she feels her self-worth, and it becomes a complete obsession. She is also consumed with fear of ever feeling pain like she felt when the king died. This leads her to distance herself from Snow White in the fear that something might happen to her.
Eventually, in her twisted mind, she decides that the only way to save Snow White from feeling the kind of pain she herself feels is to kill her. It will also keep her status as the fairest of all, so there’s a selfish motivation too. It doesn’t make logical sense, but Valentino’s Queen has some severe mental health issues, and to her, it does make sense. She doesn’t see herself as the bad guy; she sees herself as protecting her daughter.
I really like Valentino’s take on the Queen. I mean, it never made sense that the King would marry someone who hated his daughter so much. But when he married the Queen, she didn’t hate Snow White; she loved her. And she never actually hates Snow White in Fairest of All; she always loves her. She just doesn’t always know the right way to show it.
Fairest of All is a novel take on an old story
As far as I know, no one has really taken the time to look at the story of Snow White from the Queen’s point of view before. Instead of having an aging woman trying desperately to hold on to her youth, we see a grieving wife trying to protect her daughter. Grief does cause us to do crazy things, but that doesn’t mean that those actions don’t come from a place of love. Valentino offers a unique perspective on the daughter-stepmother relationship, as well as a nuanced view of loss, fear, and love. Her story both adheres to the classic Snow White tale and presents us with completely new possibilities, making the Queen a character to both pity and love, rather than just hate. I think there are a lot of stepmothers out there who can appreciate taking some of the wicked out of the Queen and just making her a woman trying her best to handle a terrible situation.
One quick note, Fairest of All can be read as a stand-alone story, but it is actually the first in the Villains Series. This series follows the odd sisters as they weave through different classic Disney stories, corrupting characters and creating villains. If you enjoy Fairest of All, you might want to check out the rest of the series
My Rating: 9/10
Fairest of All by Serena Valentino is available for purchase! Have you read this novel before? Do you enjoy twists on these classic tales? Let us know on social media @BoxSeatBabes!
