A review by linneahedvig
Beautiful by Juliet Marillier

2.0

This was kind of a retelling of East of the Sun West of the Moon, but only at the beginning. After that story ends, this one carries on with the troll queen's daughter. The story had some good fairy tale elements, but on the whole it felt like it was trying to do too much. It wants to have the emotional realism of something like The Goblin Emperor, looking at how someone survives abuse and abandonment and takes over a kingdom, and it also wants to tell a fairy tale with the rule of threes and archetypal characters. I have also been having a hard time with audiobooks lately, so it might have also been that.