Six-Gun Snow White

Valente turns her craftsmanship to the story of Snow White and the setting of American West, and I tell you, it's gorgeous. The language is jaw-dropping and painfully true sometimes."She forbade me to eat sweets or any good thing til I got thin as a dog and could hardly stand I was so damn hungry-- there, now you're beautiful, she said and I did not know if it was my dog-bones showing or my crawling in front of her begging for a miserable apple to stop my belly screaming that made me fair."The other characters are sharp and two-dimensional, like shadow-puppets in Snow White's world. I thought that choice worked out well stylistically, but it gave you less to hang on to if you are the sort of person who connects to characters. Snow White herself is not so much a character as a set of actions and reactions, and I'm not sure I know how to describe the difference to you, but I know it's there.That said, I really enjoyed this book, and Snow White, and the huntsman and the deer and the world, and all that. But I felt let down at the end. It was all entropy and glass coffin and it felt strangely abrupt. It's not bad, it's just not what I was craving from the story.My favorite part of the book was when Snow White finds the town of women, Oh-Be-Joyful. It was run by crones and the best kind of witches, the kind with no magic but lots of experience."Life's still stupid but we got free of story out here under the beeches and the Big Dipper. We had enough of it, of things happening one after another and no end in sight. Of reversals and falling in love and tragic flaws and by God if I see another motif in my business I will shoot it dead. The stories that happen to people like us aren't worth my back teeth. So if you want it you can have a nice life here. You can wake up next to Jackson til the end of days and the raising of the glorious dead. You can eat squirrel pancakes out of Ephie's pan and watch the moon go up and down. It's a kind of magic, but then most things are. But story is an eager f****** beaver and someday soon someone will come knocking for you and you'd better just say no thank you is all I'm saying. Whatever's on the other side of that let me in will burn you hollow and lick the ash for the last of you. The worst thing in the world is having to go back to the dark you shook off.""If I see another motif in my business I will shoot it dead." I think I have been waiting for two decades for a character to say that.So what I'm saying about this book is that it's beautiful, and I found the ending unsatisfying, but perhaps that was the point.Read if: You love Valente's work. You have a hankerin' for interesting commentary on all sorts of myths.Skip if: You are an impatient reader, you want to love people in your books.Also read: Rapunzel's Revenge for another old-west fairy tale.

I am a huge Valente fan and was excited to read this retelling of Snow White by her. This was a stark, yet well done retelling of Snow White set in the Wild West. I ended up enjoying it.The whole story is set in Nevada in the gold-rush era. Initially Snow is pretty much left to her own devices and pampered by her much absent father. Everything is all good until he remarries and Snow’s new stepmom is determined to wash the sin off Snow and turn her into a real lady. Of course our free-spirited Snow can’t tolerate this and ends up flying off to have adventures of her own.This is a gritty and stark retelling of the Snow White tale and is told in a beautiful yet simple style. Snow comes across as both naive and extremely wise in the ways of man as the story progresses. I loved Snow’s voice and the way the story was told. It was poetic in its own way.Overall I would recommend to those who enjoy fairy tale retellings. This is a unique retelling of Snow White in a Wild West setting. The writing is somewhat poetic in its starkness and is a bit ambiguous at times. I really enjoyed it and thought the way it was written really conveyed Snow’s personality and environment well.

It was an interesting read. It did not hold my interest. But I did like the cover.

If I could eat Cathrynne M. Valente's prose for all my meals every day, I would. And I'd die fat and happy. I was less sure about this before I read it, though I am a huge fan of fairy tale retellings I don't tend to do as well with Wild West settings. I'm glad I overcame my bias. Valente uses her brilliant prose to turn a scathing eye to society's rampant mistreatment of those who aren't white and male. Snow White is half Native American and is treated abysmally by her stepmother and society at large, though she can usually punch the latter in the face periodically. Her stepmother isn't one dimensionally evil either, which is very refreshing. She's experienced her own mistreatment as a woman, though a white one.This treatment of the seven dwarves is my absolute favorite I've ever seen. Read it and you'll see.This is a brilliant, gritty retelling of a fairy tale that has more cultural association with binary good and evil. Sweetness and light versus bitterness and dark. This upends the tropes while staying brilliantly faithful to the spirit of the story. You don't want to miss this!

This has the trademark Valente luscious language, fairy-tale-skewed view of common human frailties, and awesomely fun Old West Lingo out the whazoo....but I found the ending dissipated, leaving Deer Boy's character grey and unrealize and Snow White's ultimate fate in the last bit too quickly arrived at without the details I craved.Still, the first 2/3's of the book are compelling. Snow White (named so because she isn't) is the half Crow-half White daughter of a rich prospector. When the prospector remarries, his new wife has decided ideas about what is beautiful and what is not. She will use her magic mirror to create a child more to her own liking...unless Snow White messes up her plans.This Book's Snack Rating: BBQ Kettle Chips for the spicy-sweet, fairy tale old-west characters with a kick of human evil

This was my first book by Valente, and I turned pages eagerly through the first 2/3 of it, enjoying the rich characterization and thoughtful worldbuilding. But, as it progressed the book became less and less an innovative retelling, and more any more a myth of its own that got more confusing and less coherent as it went. Perhaps a working knowledge of Native American myths - or of Valente's other works - would make this a more pleasurable read. But for someone just entering both, the ending of this book came across as disappointing and out of left field. At 160 pages it's also more of a novella than a novel, so I think it's more fairly priced for kindle than in paperback.

This is the third book by Catherynne M. Valente that I've read in the past month or so, and it's my favourite so far.I love the way the story has been written, the language and the voice are so strong -- both in the part narrated by Snow White and the part in third person. Valente's prose is absolutely stunning as usual, I think she must agonize over every word. It's full of colourful language and little turns of phrase that really sell both the Wild West setting and the fairy tale aspects. Plus, the idea to write a Snow White retelling as a western is completely genius! It's so original, I don't think I've seen anything similar. I loved the way aspects of the fairy tale were pulled in -- the seven women of Oh-Be-Joyful, Charming the horse, the Pinkerton huntsman -- and the commentary on women and their lot in that life, which was woven through.I really fell in love with Snow White as a character, from the adorable little girl who tries to bargain for her step mother's affection -- "If you love me, I'll love you back" -- to the street-smart practical person she becomes -- “Of course she cheated. Don't be silly. Snow White spent half her growing years shuffling cards for no one. She can cut false and she can cut true, but she wasn't going to lose when it counted.” There's something honest and raw about her, that feels completely real rather than a made-up character, especially as 'Snow White' could so easily fall into a caricature.My single complaint is that the very last section, felt a little out of place to me. I wasn't keen on how the story suddenly time-skipped, or how the resolution was so unrelated to the rest of the story. I would also have liked to see Snow White spend more time with -- and connect with -- the women of Oh-Be-Joyful, and maybe even Deer Boy.Overall though, I really loved Six-Gun Snow White and can't wait to see which of Valente's works I'll pick up next.

The story was good, but the broken English made it hard for me to read, and it wasn't as good as her fairyland books for me. It lost that sense of magic, and ended rather abruptly.

Diese dünne Novelle aus der magischen Feder Cat Valentes ist eine kreative Neuerzählung von Schneewittchen - im Wilden Westen!In dieser Version ist Snow die Tochter einer Indianerin und eines Siedlers und ihre böse Stiefmutter gibt ihr den Namen Snow White, weil ihre Haut niemals weiß sein wird. Nett.^^Auch alle anderen bekannten Elemente sind vorhanden: die Bergminen, der Jägersmann - und doch sind sie alle völlig neu interpretiert.Ich mochte dieses kleine Bändchen sehr. Snow ist kein zerbrechliches Mädchen, das im Wald von Zwergen beschützt werden muss, nein, sie hat eine perlenbesetzte Knarre, arbeitet selbst in den Minen und hat daher die Muskelkraft, sich gegen jeden Mann zu verteidigen. Coool.Ein Manko gibt es jedoch: Es gibt das Büchlein nicht auf Deutsch und es ist etwas schwierig, es auf Englisch zu lesen, denn Valente schreibt in Dialekt und Akzent, lässt manchmal Wörter unter den Tisch fallen, verneint doppelt oder schreibt, wie ein Cowboy mit Kaugummi im Mund babbeln würde."No one can tell a true story about themselves."

Catherynne m Valente, never a word wrong