Gilded by Marissa Meyer

Rating: 3/5

A retelling? Of Rumpelstiltskin? By the absolute QUEEN of fantasy retellings herself? I’m sure you can imagine my excitement. After reading Heartless and The Lunar Chronicles, I was positive this book would be nothing short of extraordinary.

I preordered it, did the little dance when it got here, and then proceeded to take a month and a half to finish it.

Gilded has left me feeling nothing but confused.

I just feel like I don’t understand. I feel like I was dragged through five-hundred pages of something that could have been told in less than three-hundred. Despite all of these extra pages, I still have an insane amount of questions about the world Meyer was trying to build. Who are these gods? Who are these people that claim to dislike Serilda so much? What are these moons and what do they mean?

The middle of the book dragged on. And I mean dragged. It was as though I was reading the same thing over and over again and I just wanted something different to happen. Each time the Erkling came, nothing let different. It all let the same. And I had no idea why I was still reading the book if the same thing was going to happen again and again.

Oh and the romance. Meyer captured the impulsive desires of teenagers perfectly in this aspect. I suppose it had to happen the way it did, with all the rushing into things, but it felt frustrating. Like, homegirl, don’t you have more important things to worry about?

Serilda’s relationships felt forced, shallow, and opportunistic. I wanted more depth in these characters and I just didn’t find it. As a result, their relationships felt as shallow as they did.

Those are some big complaints, but I didn’t hate all of it. Here is what I did like.

The writing style and the atmosphere of this book are its highlights. I have always loved the way Marissa Meyer strings words together to make beautiful sentences that makes beautiful stories. Because the writing style was so descriptive, it was easy to feel creeped out or on edge. It was magnificently eerie. I really like the world, even if I don’t one-hundred percent understand it. It’s all castles and ghosts and fairy tale creatures.

She also pulled a lot of inspiration from German folklore rather than relying on the fairy tale completely. It added to the previously mentioned castle and ghosts.

Oh and the ENDING. It packed an absolute monster of a punch that I was not expecting. I didn’t understand why it happened the way it did, but it did tie some things together and I am looking forward to see what happens next.

To make it short..

I think this first book was used to set the stage for a phenomenal series. It is far from amazing but its also far from terrible. Its not Marissa Meyer’s best work but it is certainly dark, twisted, and intriguing with a fun world and good writing.

The world was full of small enchantments, when one was willing to look for them.

Marissa Meyer