Book Review - Ash by Malinda Lo

Thursday September 3, 2009

Ash
By Malinda Lo
Available September 1, 2009
In the wake of her father's death, Ash is left at the mercy of her cruel stepmother. Consumed with grief, her only joy comes by the light of the dying hearth fire, rereading the fairy tales her mother once told her. In her dreams, someday the fairies will steal her away, as they are said to do. When she meets the dark and dangerous fairy Sidhean, she believes that her wish may be granted.

The day that Ash meets Kaisa, the King's Huntress, her heart begins to change. Instead of chasing fairies, Ash learns to hunt with Kaisa. Though their friendship is as delicate as a new bloom, it reawakens Ash's capacity for love-and her desire to live. But Sidhean has already claimed Ash for his own, and she must make a choice between fairy tale dreams and true love.

Entrancing, empowering, and romantic, Ash is about the connection between life and love, and solitude and death, where transformation can come from even the deepest grief.

I didn't know a lot about this book before I read it, but it didn't take me long to see that it is somewhat based on the Cinderella fairy tale. Of course as the fairy tale goes Ash's mother dies and she is left alone with her father and their housekeeper Anya. Unlike the original tale, in this story we learn quite a bit about her mother and what she was like before she died.

Her mother had always told Ash fairy tales and it was rumored in their village that her mother was magical, an element that faeries are drawn too. After her mothers death Ash has strange dreams about going to her mother's grave and feeling the presence of someone watching her.

Eventually, as the tale goes, Ash finds herself a servant in her stepmothers household. Before long she is sneaking into the forest at night to talk to the fairy Sidhean in hopes that he can help her escape her miserable situation. But during the day she finds her self drawn to the huntress Kaisa, desiring to spend more and more time with her.

Ash is a beautifully written story that blows away the standard definitions of love and attraction. The subtext of the story is powerful yet subtle and does not overshadow the story itself. No part of the story is forced and I felt that Ash's love story was very natural...it was easy to follow Ash as she fell in love. A lovely twist on an old tale!