Fairest
Loosely based on the fairy tale “Snow White”, Fairest tells the story of Aza, a homely young maiden who longs to be beautiful. Possessing the finest singing voice and a good heart, Aza endures jeers and stares because of her unattractiveness. When given the opportunity to attend the royal wedding, Aza’s charisma and angelic voice charm the prince, and gets her the position of “Lady in Waiting” to the new manipulative queen. After Queen Ivy learns of Aza’s talent of ilusing (throwing her voice), she forces Aza to deceive the royal court into thinking Aza’s singing voice is really queen Ivy’s. Once she tries to right her wrong, Aza finds she is in serious trouble.
Though the author has made this tale uniquely her own, elements of the original story such as the magic mirror and the poison apple are included, but instead of the 7 dwarfs there is “zhamM” and his society of gnomes. The queen is more childish than wicked, and the story has action, adventure, perils, and romance (including a few kisses - between the prince and Aza). I liked that the prince fell in love with Aza for her character and inner beauty, not for her outer appearance. Her actual pursuit of beauty was her downfall. What an admirable message for today’s girls who may feel insignificant because they don’t look like a cover girl. Though cleverly adapted, I’ll mention I thought the numerous stanzas of songs included in the narration distracting, so I skipped over just about all of them to keep the story moving.
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