Ash

Overall: 4 1/2 starsPlot/Storyline: 4 1/4 starsThis is simply a very rich retelling of Cinderella, with many of the well-known details intact, and a few changes and additions. If you are a fan of the Celtic style of fairy tale/folklore - with fairies as a magical race that humans stumbled across at their own peril - I believe this will be extra pleasing. Ash interacts with the fairy race throughout the story and this adds a level of suspense and danger since it's not all bibbity bobbity boo, and there are stories throughout to remind us of how dangerous these interactions can be.The love story - Ash and the huntress - is not treated as controversial. In this world, people don't seem to give a thought to it as a forbidden thing, and the treatment is matter of fact. People fall in love and this one girl, Ash, almost without realizing it falls in love with the Royal Huntress. There is more controversy in the class difference between someone who looks and acts like a scullery maid and a person who is part of the royal court. Their relationship is only overtly romantic well into the book, and this aspect is quite G-rated.(It's worth noting that the author comments on her blog that "in Ash's world, there is no homosexuality or heterosexuality; there is only love. The story is about her falling in love. It's not about her being gay.")The novel length is of benefit to the story, allowing Lo to give more time to Ash's profound grief over the loss of her parents, particularly her mother, as well as to show our heroine as a tough character, and to wed this tale, with the most popular tellings of French or German derivation, with the storytelling traditions of the British Isles.One of my complaints is that the author downplays Ash's dilemma between a life with the fairies and love in the real world. I think it could make her feelings seem shallower than had been intended, and her transition perhaps seemed less than completely explained.The other complaint is the ending. It ends happily, as it should! However, the resolution was simply too easy, as if the writer couldn't think of a more complex way to get the same result. To say more would be to spoil, but there was definitely some missing conflict.Characters: 4 1/4 starsAsh is a likable character, with courage and spirit. Whether or not you'll consider her intelligent is a matter of how you perceive her interactions with the fairy world since pretty much every story she'd read and her mother and everyone who believed in fairies told you they don't play! However, in the beginning she was longing to be with her dead mother and felt she had nothing left for her, and so it makes some sense to me. I would have liked at least one more scene where we get to see what's in the love interest's heart, but - as is often the case with romantic stories - it's enough that a sympathetic character found love.Lo made one of the stepsisters awful, but still with a hint of girlish hopes for herself, and one on the brink of likable. The stepmother seemed to have a justification for her actions, or at least she was able to justify it in her own mind. For the most part, I cannot say the secondary characters were fully fleshed out, but fairytales do tend to be told in broad strokes.Writing style: 4 1/2 starsLo does a nice job of making the story feel both traditional and new - honoring folktales and traditions while seamlessly including a message of acceptance. By having it not matter to these people, in Once Upon A Time Land, that a girl's heart is given to another girl, it points out pretty sharply that it's odd that it bothers so many people in this world.As someone who enjoys fairytales, and folktales, and the reimagining of them, I found the author's choices and treatment of this story to be quite satisfactory.

Malinda Lo’s ASH is a quick read packed with interesting ideas. The book explores themes of femininity, liminality and power all wrapped up in a queer coming-of-age retelling of Cinderella. Aisling—nicknamed Ash—winds up working in her stepmother’s house as a servant after the untimely deaths of first her mother and then her father. Her father’s death saddled her stepmother, Lady Isobel, with unforseen debts, and Lady Isobel tells Ash it’s her duty to work those debts off by way of servitude. Ash grows up a servant in Quinn House, where she cooks and cleans for Lady Isobel and her stepsisters Ana and Clara. But while her days are taken up with the minutia of housekeeping, Ash’s nights are her own. She explores the nearby woods, where she meets first a fairy man with an ominous and mysterious interest in her, and then the King’s Huntress, Kaisa, for whom Ash falls hard. The crux of the book comes when Ash decides to strike deals with the fairy, Sidhean, in order to spend time with Kaisa. The book is full of cusps and precipices: Ash wanders from the human world into the fairy world, from childhood to adolescence, is a servant but masquerades as a noblewoman. It’s a book about choices and about boundaries with a very welcome and agentic female protagonist.Lo was intentional in her use of fairy tales throughout—the reader knows, going into the book, that it is a retelling of a common fairy tale. We come in with expectations based on that. The style of the book is distant and regal, old-fashioned. There are few contractions and a measured pace, the likes of which we associate with “once upon a time” writing. Occasionally this was too literal for my taste, but Lo generally carries it off and uses this tone and language to create truly lovely imagery throughout. But, what’s most interesting is that there is, at play here, a meta-textual relationship between the fact that this is another iteration of a common fairy tale and the role of fairy tales within the book. Ash reads and rereads a book of fairy tales throughout her childhood and adolescence. Ash and Kaisa flirt by telling each other their favorite fairy tales. They discuss the role of fairy tales, the lessons they teach, and how regardless of their veracity they become real, living institutions. Ash uncovers the fairy tales of her own history—of her mother’s life—over the course of her relationship with Sidhean, a living fairy. It’s a fascinating thing to read which never becomes overly clever or gimmicky.Part of the reason the fairy tales within a fairy tale aspect of the book works so well is because Ash’s world is so well-drawn. It’s an especially feminine book; by that I mean that it is a book much more concerned about women’s lives and women’s roles and women’s sources of power than men’s. While Lady Isobel and her two daughters first appear to be yet another two-dimensional incarnation of the evil stepmother and wicked stepsisters trope, Lo takes the time to fill them in and give them realistic motives and limitations. They never become sympathetic, but they become understandable people who are both trapped in their circumstances and so entrenched in those circumstances that they see only a handful of options. Lady Isobel is a woman heading a household and managing a mountain of debt without any real income—it makes financial sense for her to take her stepdaughter and turn her into a servant she doesn’t have to pay. It is unfair, but it makes sense. And it makes sense for her to push her oldest daughter, Ana, to marry well. She sees Ana as her one chance at pulling her family out of the hole, and Ana is groomed and indoctrinated accordingly. Clara, the second sister, has a number of interesting conversations about marrying for money and status with Ash over the course of the book. Ash, being a servant, is in a position where marrying for love is a much simpler and much more accessible option. That Lo points this out humanizes and contextualizes the book’s antagonists.Marriage—who does it and who doesn’t—is a broader theme in the book. The outlying towns where Ash hails from are held together by rural greenwitches, who work as the town’s healers and sources of wisdom and who traditionally don’t marry. Ash’s mother was one prior to her marriage to Ash’s father, so Ash is steeped in that community. The King’s Huntress, a position of high status and visibility, is another role of feminine power tied to a tradition of not marrying. And in contrast, there is Lady Isobel and her daughters who, through circumstance and their institutional lack of a viable trade, use marriage to claim and assert an altogether different kind of power. This running conversation about women’s lives and women’s choices—and the extent to which those are real, true choices rather than prescribed ones—made this book a joy to read.While Ash was a finely drawn character, I would have liked deeper characterization of the tertiary characters. Kaisa, specifically, remained a cipher through the text, someone who was more role than real person. I rooted for them to work out, but mostly because I was rooting for Ash; their romance felt rote and unfinished at times, but perhaps that was . Ultimately, my biggest complaint about the book is that it was too short and too restrained for my taste. I wanted more history, more exploration of the characters’ interaction. I wanted more raw anger and sexuality. But this was a YA book, and Ash adheres to the conventions of YA lit—short, fraught with tension that culminates in a couple of tongue kisses and nothing more. None of this is a criticism of the conventions of YA literature; these are more my personal tastes. ASH is an excellent book by any standard, and an excellent YA book in particular.

Loved how the story unfolded! And the Lesbian plot well done

This book was incredibly difficult to read because it was incredibly dry and slow-paced. It felt like nothing really happened until page 250, and the book is only 264 pages. This book can hardly be pitched as a sapphic romance because there is very little development of that before page 200, and they don't even kiss until 10 pages before the end. I was just so bored reading this and the romance element was drowned beneath a really confusing fairy plotline. There was little to no angst to keep me interested in the developing romance, and by the end, I found this book blandly average, even though I did like the Cinderella elements sprinkled in.

[SPOILERS] I finished Ash a few days ago and it has become my new favourite book. Before I read this, I didn’t even know what to say when someone asked me what my favourite book was - but now I do! Ash has everything i could ever want from a story. From the beautiful, magical world it’s set in where greenwitches are dying out and fairies lurk in the shadows, to the same-sex relationship at the very forefront of the book. I’m still thoroughly enchanted by this incredible novel.From the very beginning, this book is captivating. As someone who very recently lost their mum, I’m so happy to be able to identify with Ash, who we see at her mum’s funeral at the very start of the book. This loss is something that echoes throughout the pages, which I was very happy about. I’ve found that loss can often be portrayed wrongly in fiction, like something you can easily forget about or move on from. But Ash goes from wanting to find a way to bring her mum back from the dead, to craving the sound of her voice, to just missing her dearly and wishing she was by her side. I commend Malinda Lo for this brilliant portrayal. I felt for Ash so much, and hope I would do so even without going through my own trauma.Then there’s the love within the story. I’m not sure whether to label Ash as lesbian or bisexual, but she seems very interested in a male faerie, at first. Of course, he is a faerie, and there is a whole bunch of agenda and backstory underneath the mere enjoyment of his company. I was never sure whether to think he was evil or not, but he was interesting. Then, we meet the huntress. I love the way Malinda Lo built their story, with little meetings that unveiled a little bit more each time about both characters. It is tender and captivating. In a lot of novels I find I don’t believe the love story, or maybe even that I don’t care about it, but this one was careful and magical. With Ash acting as a servant to her step mother, she can rarely leave the house, and ends up making deals with the faerie who tells her that she belongs to him. You’re never quite sure where she will end up, but I was thrilled when she finally ended up in the huntresses arms. And none of it seems too dramatic, or overly sexual. It’s just a brilliant story.Lastly, there’s the magic in the book. I’ve already mentioned the faerie, but Ash and other characters are constantly telling tales of faeries and people who get taken away from them. We understand that most people don’t believe in them in the story world, now, but Ash does, and wants after their magic to help in her life. There are also witches, which Lo calls “greenwitches”, who do certain ceremonies and healing rituals. I liked this too, and felt I could really see the herbs and such that the witches would use. It seems Ash’s mum was also a witch. And all this magic ties together perfectly, enough to keep Ash from the completely non-magic reality around her.I just really, really liked this book. It’s been a long time since something has held me that captive and got me that into a story. If you’ve found yourself becoming bored of stories with predominantly straight characters, or where the love just seems completely unrealistic, you must read Ash. <3

Slow burning love. Perfect re told story. I'm not much of a reader. Been wanted to read a lesbian novel for ages just didn't look into it as much..till recently. I came across this book so many times. I loved this and will continue to find more lesbian love stories ❤ I'm glad I picked this book to get me started ☺

Ce conte de Malinda Lo est un vrai coup de coeur. C'est beau, frais, poétique, enchanteur et surtout joliment écrit.C'est une nouvelle façon de (re)voir le conte de Cendrillon sans le côté mièvre à la disneyenne. On sort carrément du stéréotype manichéen de la gentille fille qui veut fuir sa méchante belle-mère pour aller se marier avec le beau Prince Charmant. Ici, le personnage principale, Ash (Cendre en français), est touchante sans inspirer la pitié, elle apprend de son environnement, elle choisit et elle agit plutôt que de subir. Elle va s'apercevoir qu'être belle et bien habillée ne suffit pas pour être aimée, qu'il est possible d'aimer de plusieurs façons différentes, que de suivre les autres n'est pas le meilleur choix, etc. Bref, on a enfin un conte pour ado (et adulte) où le personnage féminin, même si douce et touchante, a une vraie personnalité. Dommage qu'il ne soit pas encore traduit en plusieurs langues, il mérite vraiment d'être connu !