paulachap's review against another edition
emotional
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
alexperc_92's review against another edition
4.0
I received an e-ARC from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. Review can also be found on *Milky Way of Books*
Ah my wonderful Anna-Marie! Who takes words and transforms them into pictures and scents, tastes and otherworldly delights! This is yet another masterpiece inspired the fairytale of The Red Shoes but it also is a tale of racism, phobia and deadly magic.
I won't spoiler the plot but I have to say that the story transpires time as the characters try to survive and live in difficult times when being different was reason enough to be an outcast. Romanis are not an ethnic group you see often in books (apart from history-research books of course) and it was very interesting to read how the magic of the shoes was weaved into the characters and their struggle with their own feelings.
Definitely a great book, which I recommend for its superb writing and glorious descriptions.
Ah my wonderful Anna-Marie! Who takes words and transforms them into pictures and scents, tastes and otherworldly delights! This is yet another masterpiece inspired the fairytale of The Red Shoes but it also is a tale of racism, phobia and deadly magic.
I won't spoiler the plot but I have to say that the story transpires time as the characters try to survive and live in difficult times when being different was reason enough to be an outcast. Romanis are not an ethnic group you see often in books (apart from history-research books of course) and it was very interesting to read how the magic of the shoes was weaved into the characters and their struggle with their own feelings.
Definitely a great book, which I recommend for its superb writing and glorious descriptions.
lestaslettering's review
1.0
That's what you get for going into this expecting something like Scarlet or A girl in Red. No, thank you. Terribly awful!! Dnf at 20%>
lesha's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
dexterous_totalus's review
5.0
4.5 stars. McLemore holds magic in their hands. Although I loved her other books more, this one touched my heart in ways I could not comprehend. The journey with this book startes in 2020 and I felt a thorn plucked from my throat now that I finished it. Review to follow soon.
nataliem22's review
5.0
Colors and actions have power in everyday life. Specific colors provoke specific responses, and intentional (even unintentional) actions all have consequences. Dancing in red shoes provokes a specific image, especially if you're familiar with a dark and twisted fairytale. Retellings, one of my favorite sub-genres of young adult fiction, keep getting darker and more twisted as the years go on -- quite possibly a reflection of the world we're growing to live in. Anna-Marie McLemore, in their fifth and most recent novel, Dark and Deepest Red, tackles agency, history, cultures, faith, and power by connecting the stories of two women who will give it all up, to save all those they love.
Anna-Marie McLemore is the author of fairy tales that are as queer, Latinx, and nonbinary as they are. Their books include The Weight of Feathers, a 2016 William C. Morris YA Debut Award Finalist; 2017 Stonewall Honor Book When the Moon Was Ours, which was also longlisted for the National Book Award in Young People's Literature; Wild Beauty, a Kirkus, School Library Journal, and Booklist best book of 2017; Blanca & Roja, a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice; Dark and Deepest Red, a Winter 2020 Indie Next List selection; and the forthcoming The Mirror Season. They also have short stories that appear in anthologies, and a scattering of non-fiction essays. You can find Anna-Marie McLemore at author.annamariemclemore.com. If you're interested in more of my reviews of their work, you can find them all here.
Summer 1518: A strange sickness sweeps through Strasbourg, France. Women dance in the streets without stopping, some until they fall down dead. As rumors of witchcraft and demon possession spread, suspicion turns toward Lavinia Blau and her family, and Lavinia may have to do the unimaginable to save herself and everyone she loves. Five centuries later: A pair of beautiful red shoes seal themselves to Rosella Oliva's feet, making her dance uncontrollably. They draw her toward a boy who knows the dancing fever's history better than anyone: Emil, whose family was blamed for the fever five hundred years ago. But there's more to what happened in 1518 than even Emil knows, and discovering the truth may determine whether Rosella survives the red shoes. With their signature lush prose and complex characters, Anna-Marie McLemore's Dark and Deepest Red pairs the forbidding magic of a fairy tale with the modern story of passion and betrayal.
Rosella is proud to be an Olivia girl, despite the challenges and pressures she faced because of her color and her faith. In fact, her pride is the reason she's lying and deceiving so no one finds out about her dancing syndrome. Her character arc is the most prevalent, especially because readers feel closer to her because of her first-person narration. Maybe one-fourth of the book is narrated exclusively by Rosella, but the first-person narration gives her a tighter hold on modern day readers' understanding of the story. First-person narration is always more powerful because it gives readers a feeling of being that character; we can only assume that McLemore made Rosella the main narrator because they knew this would be the case. Readers can connect with Rosella's modern day behaviors, and also understand Lala further because Rosella and Lala are intricately tied together.
Lala leads the story in decisions, in my mind: everything that Rosella ends up doing, Lala does first in some form. Lala becomes a leader, after having kept her head down for so long. The thread of power and agency in this story originates from her, and most other themes can also be traced back to the story of Strasbourg, 1518. Through Lala, readers understand most of the commentary of the story. Through close third-person narration of about half the book, McLemore has the time to create Lala's story, and to also remark on the conditions and history of the Romani people, queer history, rich vs. poor cultures, and even disease culture to a degree. All of these are incredibly relevant to today's world, and help us understand the similarities of Lala's and Rosella's struggles. McLemore, in their author's note, articulates all these levels of commentary better than I possibly could -- if you read this book, I highly suggest reading the author's note before the novel (there are no spoilers within the author's note), and then rereading it after finishing. It adds a whole other level of understanding and feeling to the story, in a way that makes the story extend past the boundaries of the page.
In their acknowledgements, McLemore thanks the person who made clear the "sexism, mortality, and transcendent feminism within the original story of the 'The Red Shoes.'" These themes, by the end of the book, shine through clearly through the parallel story lines of Rosella and Lala. The parallels are truly clear throughout the novel: when each woman decides how to show their love to the person they love, when they decide to save those they love, even when each woman decides to take control of their own destiny even if it kills them. This gives each woman more power within the story, and bursts past the traditional fairytale boundaries. The control the women regain within their times also teaches modern day readers about the repercussions of history. This is a story about power and control, but also a story about shedding light on the oppressed from history, whose stories have been historically censored. It teaches us that only we can control how we view history, and that we can always bring parts of history back to the present. That way, we can relearn history, understand it, and then try to keep it from repeating -- that much, at least, is in our power. Although published in January of 2020, this is a lesson that feels increasingly relevant in the summer of our world today.
McLemore is known for their lush prose, and it is true that this skill is utilized in the telling of Rosella's, Emil's and Lala's stories. However, I didn't find it as lush as that of her previous books, which I found to be an asset for the kind of story they were telling in this novel. Instead of dense paragraphs of lush description that amount to longer chapters, McLemore has opted for a shorter-chapter approach -- most chapters are no more than 5 pages. This means that each sentence, each detail (large or small) is important; maybe not at first, but if you read and pay attention, you'll be rewarded by recognizing details from the beginning that only start to be important near the end. The shorter chapters allow the parallel stories of Rosella and Lala to fold on top of one another, like an accordion. Maybe at first it's difficult to keep track of who's who, seeing as how there are five centuries between Lala and Rosella, and the fact that Emil also has an important third-person narration. But, these short accordion-style chapters allows the two stories to line up right next to each other, so that when they finally converge, it feels seamless. This is when most of the themes of the story rise to the surface of the novel, themes that McLemore had been subtly yet fiercely poking at, only now drawing them into the limelight.
Anna-Marie McLemore has already been lined up for more novels (yay!). Coming in winter 2021, they are set to release a novel called The Mirror Season, a magical realism retelling of the fairy tale, "The Snow Queen." I can't wait to get my hands on it; for now, find more information of McLemore's upcoming projects and releases here.
*This review can also be found on my blog, toreadornottoreadnm.blogspot.com*
Anna-Marie McLemore is the author of fairy tales that are as queer, Latinx, and nonbinary as they are. Their books include The Weight of Feathers, a 2016 William C. Morris YA Debut Award Finalist; 2017 Stonewall Honor Book When the Moon Was Ours, which was also longlisted for the National Book Award in Young People's Literature; Wild Beauty, a Kirkus, School Library Journal, and Booklist best book of 2017; Blanca & Roja, a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice; Dark and Deepest Red, a Winter 2020 Indie Next List selection; and the forthcoming The Mirror Season. They also have short stories that appear in anthologies, and a scattering of non-fiction essays. You can find Anna-Marie McLemore at author.annamariemclemore.com. If you're interested in more of my reviews of their work, you can find them all here.
Summer 1518: A strange sickness sweeps through Strasbourg, France. Women dance in the streets without stopping, some until they fall down dead. As rumors of witchcraft and demon possession spread, suspicion turns toward Lavinia Blau and her family, and Lavinia may have to do the unimaginable to save herself and everyone she loves. Five centuries later: A pair of beautiful red shoes seal themselves to Rosella Oliva's feet, making her dance uncontrollably. They draw her toward a boy who knows the dancing fever's history better than anyone: Emil, whose family was blamed for the fever five hundred years ago. But there's more to what happened in 1518 than even Emil knows, and discovering the truth may determine whether Rosella survives the red shoes. With their signature lush prose and complex characters, Anna-Marie McLemore's Dark and Deepest Red pairs the forbidding magic of a fairy tale with the modern story of passion and betrayal.
Rosella is proud to be an Olivia girl, despite the challenges and pressures she faced because of her color and her faith. In fact, her pride is the reason she's lying and deceiving so no one finds out about her dancing syndrome. Her character arc is the most prevalent, especially because readers feel closer to her because of her first-person narration. Maybe one-fourth of the book is narrated exclusively by Rosella, but the first-person narration gives her a tighter hold on modern day readers' understanding of the story. First-person narration is always more powerful because it gives readers a feeling of being that character; we can only assume that McLemore made Rosella the main narrator because they knew this would be the case. Readers can connect with Rosella's modern day behaviors, and also understand Lala further because Rosella and Lala are intricately tied together.
Lala leads the story in decisions, in my mind: everything that Rosella ends up doing, Lala does first in some form. Lala becomes a leader, after having kept her head down for so long. The thread of power and agency in this story originates from her, and most other themes can also be traced back to the story of Strasbourg, 1518. Through Lala, readers understand most of the commentary of the story. Through close third-person narration of about half the book, McLemore has the time to create Lala's story, and to also remark on the conditions and history of the Romani people, queer history, rich vs. poor cultures, and even disease culture to a degree. All of these are incredibly relevant to today's world, and help us understand the similarities of Lala's and Rosella's struggles. McLemore, in their author's note, articulates all these levels of commentary better than I possibly could -- if you read this book, I highly suggest reading the author's note before the novel (there are no spoilers within the author's note), and then rereading it after finishing. It adds a whole other level of understanding and feeling to the story, in a way that makes the story extend past the boundaries of the page.
In their acknowledgements, McLemore thanks the person who made clear the "sexism, mortality, and transcendent feminism within the original story of the 'The Red Shoes.'" These themes, by the end of the book, shine through clearly through the parallel story lines of Rosella and Lala. The parallels are truly clear throughout the novel: when each woman decides how to show their love to the person they love, when they decide to save those they love, even when each woman decides to take control of their own destiny even if it kills them. This gives each woman more power within the story, and bursts past the traditional fairytale boundaries. The control the women regain within their times also teaches modern day readers about the repercussions of history. This is a story about power and control, but also a story about shedding light on the oppressed from history, whose stories have been historically censored. It teaches us that only we can control how we view history, and that we can always bring parts of history back to the present. That way, we can relearn history, understand it, and then try to keep it from repeating -- that much, at least, is in our power. Although published in January of 2020, this is a lesson that feels increasingly relevant in the summer of our world today.
McLemore is known for their lush prose, and it is true that this skill is utilized in the telling of Rosella's, Emil's and Lala's stories. However, I didn't find it as lush as that of her previous books, which I found to be an asset for the kind of story they were telling in this novel. Instead of dense paragraphs of lush description that amount to longer chapters, McLemore has opted for a shorter-chapter approach -- most chapters are no more than 5 pages. This means that each sentence, each detail (large or small) is important; maybe not at first, but if you read and pay attention, you'll be rewarded by recognizing details from the beginning that only start to be important near the end. The shorter chapters allow the parallel stories of Rosella and Lala to fold on top of one another, like an accordion. Maybe at first it's difficult to keep track of who's who, seeing as how there are five centuries between Lala and Rosella, and the fact that Emil also has an important third-person narration. But, these short accordion-style chapters allows the two stories to line up right next to each other, so that when they finally converge, it feels seamless. This is when most of the themes of the story rise to the surface of the novel, themes that McLemore had been subtly yet fiercely poking at, only now drawing them into the limelight.
Anna-Marie McLemore has already been lined up for more novels (yay!). Coming in winter 2021, they are set to release a novel called The Mirror Season, a magical realism retelling of the fairy tale, "The Snow Queen." I can't wait to get my hands on it; for now, find more information of McLemore's upcoming projects and releases here.
*This review can also be found on my blog, toreadornottoreadnm.blogspot.com*
darcy124's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5