A review by milooo
The Sisters Grimm by Menna van Praag

dark emotional mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

this was almost 4 stars, just because there are some things that i didn’t love but overall, this is a great book. i absolutely loved the vibes (im a sucker for elemental themed magic). it really reminded me of The Hazel Wood (which i love love love). i went into this read completely blind, so it took me a while to get a hold of what the themes and commentary was about, but once i was up to speed, i really enjoyed this exploration or morality and how different standards are applied to women. the diversity of experiences and circumstances was also a really important angle to explore for this theme, and i think that the book handles this really well. i would recommend checking the content warnings for this because i was caught off guard several times. however, let it be know that i think these difficult topics were addressed with sufficient grace and were not at all gratuitous or trivialised. all the romances were tinged with a weird sense of being ‘not quite right’, which makes sense eventually, but still. the overarching theme of sisterhood would be so well done, if only they weren’t constantly talking about their father or their boyfriends. this is actually something that bothered me a bit during the whole book, that there are just. so. many. men. i know it makes sense plot-wise, but i loved the moments where we got glimpses of each sister’s relationship with each of their mother and how each of them dealt with the consequences of being a woman in Wilhelm Grimm’s world. i wish we got a bigger focus on that. the magic system was nice and vague (just how i like them), but the overall worldbuilding wasn’t developed in a satisfactory way. anyway, to summarise: really good read, just didn’t quite hit like i wanted it to
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