Never have I felt so ambivalent towards a YA novel. Usually it's pretty clean cut. But this one was difficult for me to figure out, so I guess I'll start with what I knew I liked.
I liked the writing and the story itself. It was written just like a Grimm's fairytale or a Hans Christian Anderson story. The landscapes were heavily wooded, the clothing beautiful, and the secondary characters lacked depth or backgrounds. In most books this would be a really really bad thing but with Ash it worked. The story is a reworking of a fairytale and it's awesome that Melinda Lo was able to create a recognizably fairytale world in a YA novel.
The story itself is a retelling of Cinderella but in this one the prince is basically forgotten except as a target for Aisling (Ash's) vain stepsister. The fairy godmother is still a fairy, but not in the Disney way. No this godmother is an original fairie who lures away unsuspecting travelers and kills them. Also, she's no longer a woman. Instead Ash's "godmother" is a beautiful male fairy who is sad and cursed. Also, there's a huntress who works for the prince and honestly really has no discernible background or personality other than to be basically awesome and wholly good. Which Lo pulls off very well considering that I knew nothing about the huntress other than her name was Kaisa, she's open with her interest in women, she's pretty kick-ass, and she started working for the King at the age of twelve.
Ash's mother dies young after a potential run in with fairies and her father marries a wicked woman with two vaguely evil daughters. Because Ash was raised on superstitions and fairytales she runs off into the forest whenever she's even remotely upset and every time she's saved by a beautiful fairy man named Shidean who refuses to let the fairy people take her for some strange reason, claiming that no one ever knows both sides of the story. The dad dies and Ash is moved with her sisters away from the wood that she grew up in and in order to pay off her father's debt she must now work for her step mother. It's the basic Cinderella story. But wait! There's the twist where Ash meets the Prince's Huntress, Kaisa, and discovers that y'know what? She really thinks Kaisa is awesome but becuase she's a serving girl she isn't allowed to go on the Hunt with Kaisa or to the Yule celebration or the Masquerade ball so she asks Shidean for his help and he offers it, with one stipulation. When she is ready, she will come to him and be his.
So all of that that I described? I liked all of that. It was what lay underneath that bothered me and I can't decide if I liked it. And if I did like it, how I felt about having such a gendered statement hidden beneath the text of what could have been a very awesome fairy tale/love story.
The whole story lies on the fact that [spoilers for anyone who wants to read the book and be surprised by the ending--
are they gone now? Okay good, let's proceed] Shidean was cursed by Ash's mother to love a human girl. Which, of course, turns out to be Ash, because who else could it be. The whole part leading up to this revelation leaves many courses for interpretation. Keep in mind everything I'm evaluating takes place in the last 14 pages of this book. Anyway, interpretations.
1: Shidean really doesn't like Ash but has to because of the curse-which kind of sucks for Ash because then she might be caught in a loveless romance.
2: Shidean, propelled by the curse (heteronormative socialization maybe), falls for Ash because it's man's "duty to fall for a woman" which then goes against's Kaisa's whole "love whoever you want" mentality creating a commentary about society and gender roles.
3. Shidean doesn't actually like Ash, says that he's cursed to trick her, and then preys on her fascination with fairies to lead her away from who she really loves which seems to keep in time with all the fairy tales told through the novel about the deceptive nature of fairies.
Keep all this in mind and just know that when Ash asked for help to go to the Hunt he told her she would be in his debt and would HAVE to come to him when the time was right. She had no choice in the matter. So? Is Melinda Lo trying to make him a compassionate character or actually turn him into an "evil" character of heteronormative society.
The actual ending to the novel presents even further interpretation where Ash could be seen as both a pawn in a hereronormative society or a strong feminist figure. After Shidean tells Ash of his curse, her response is that she wants just one more night of freedom and goes to dance with Kaisa, which is lovely because they get to dance together and no one cares because apparently this society doesn't look down on same sex couples. Awesome. Love it. What I don't like is that Ash runs off crying, gets caught by her stepmother in her fairy gown (courtesy of Shidean) and then runs off to the woods where she decides to bargain with Shidean.
Now, this next scene all depends on how the reader read Shidean's character throughout the entire book. Ash tells him "You have been my only friend, though such a friendship is by definition a queer one, for your people and mine are not meant to love one another. But you said that you have been cursed to love me, and I have realized that if the curse is strong -- and if you truly love me -- then you will set me free... It will end here tonight. I will be yours for this one night, and then the curse shall be broken." She then calls him seductive and powerful but says he will do her bidding--which gives her strength. But once again, to me at least, this leads to many different interpretations.
1. Ash is giving herself up to him because of some sort of obligation. Maybe because she feels sorry for him because of her mother's curse. Or maybe she feels a sense of obligation because of all those years she crushed on him, only to leave him when she found someone she loved.
2. She feels she has to fulfill her heteronormative conditioning and be with him to sate his lust for her.
3. She's using the curse to fight against his trickery, playing his own fairy game essentially, and giving herself up to have a life and break the spell connecting the two of them while also doing what no human has done in the fairy tales told throughout the book, which is beat a fairy when they're trying to hurt them.
So, each interpretation lends to different ideas. The first being that they're both sad figures controlled by society norms, the second that Shidean is trying to control Ash through his masculinity, and the third that this is Ash embracing her femininity, beating Shidean/heteronormative society and going off to love who she wants to. I choose to believe the third choice because it gives Ash more power and makes this more of a feminist text.
Until you get to the last chapter.
Ash wakes up with little-to-no recollection of what happened to her over her supposedly long and final night with Shidean. You know that it's longer than a regular human night because he tells her that but doesn't elaborate. Then, Ash wakes up with only a scar on her hand, vague memories and the knowledge that she'll never be able to return to this place again--but doesn't know why. So she goes off to find Kaisa and kisses her and "knows that she is home".
So yay, she ends up with Kaisa. The problem is that she doesn't remember her time with Shidean which takes away her agency as a character and as a woman taking charge of her own self (if you go by my third interpretation). She promises him one night thinking it's just going to be a human night and instead she's with him, doing what he wants probably for however long a night lasts in fairy land, and then she doesn't remember anything. If she's just going to forget everything, then what is the point? If she doesn't remember, she's just a blank slate with no real development to be had from her time (forced or not) in the fairy land.
[Spoilers over]
So, in the end, after an agonizing battle with how I felt about this book and what I took from it I give this a three out of five stars. The story itself is good in concept, but I just hated the ending and how it struck me with its potential meanings. As a good story for the lesbian and lgbt canon it falls kinda flat with very little build up between Ash and Kasia. Seriously, for the first 240 pages out of 264, if you didn't know the writer and just picked it up because you like fairytale retellings you could easily think that Ash just admired Kasia as a best friend and that Shidean was her true love.
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