Six-Gun Snow White

Catherynne M. Valente and I have this relationship: I think her books sound interesting, pick them up, and then I start to read them and stop. I can't exactly say why. This has happened with Palimpset and The Girl Who Circumvented Fairy Land in blah, blah, blah. Honestly, it's me. I just can't shovel through the mucky muck to get to the real story. That is, Valente takes a very long walk around the garden, pointing out butterflies in order to make her point and by the time she does, I have forgotten why I cared in the first place.
It's like listening to a charming old person rattle on about a war you are interested in. They wander in the storytelling, and in fact jump decades on you every once in a while. After a half an hour, you begin to plot how to remove your sense of hearing without the old person noticing and your neck hurts from bobbing your head up and down politely. It's not that you don't want to like the story. It's not that you don't like the person telling the story. It's the “how” of the delivery.

So. I made it through 6 Gun, and that either means that it sucks (because I really liked it) or the reason why I liked it is because Valente really reigns it in.

The chapters are short. Some are only a paragraph long. The chapter titles do not make sense until you read the chapter (like cheeky hints), Snow White is kick ass, and the world Valente created is so VERY interesting.
Why is it interesting? Because she does not give us too many details and instead we need to fill in the gaps by using our own imaginations. A boardwalk with a saloon created as a child's paradise! A personal petting zoo! A magic mirror! A deadly mine!

No spoilers, and I plan to give this a 4 as soon as Goodreads comes back up, but Snow White meets.....we shall say, “a group of characters” who I adored and wanted to stay with and learn more about. In fact, I wish those characters could have their own book.

Overall, I'm a bit tired of fairy tale retellings. I do appreciate the effort to be original here.

I may just be crazy enough to try The Melancholy of Mechagirl, but probably not.

EDIT: sorry about your power failure troubles, Goodreads. I'm glad you are back! This review is also featured on my blog.

Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente is a weird west retelling of the classic Snow White fairy tale. Instead of a princess, the main character is the daughter of a rich white man and a Native American woman. Don't go into this expecting a whimsical children's story, since this book was dark and dealt with some mature themes.

One of the main draws to this story is the western twist on the Snow White story most of us are familiar with. Instead of seven dwarves, there are seven hard-bitten outlaws. Instead of a huntsman, there's a bounty hunter. Instead of a gem mine, there's...uh...a gem mine. Maybe that one's the same, but it fits nicely with the time period of the gold rush.

Here's a breakdown of the central characters:

Gun That Sings: A beautiful Native American woman who catches the eye of Mr. H. She's Snow White's mother, but doesn't stick around past the start of the story.

Mr. H: When he sees Gun That Sings, he doesn't rest until he makes her his wife. Since he's rich and powerful, he has the means to make saying no problematic.

Snow White: The half-white, half-Native American child of Gun That Sings and Mr. H. She's isolated due to her mixed race, and grows up entertaining herself by learning how to shoot.

Evil Stepmother: After Snow White's mother, Mr. H marries Evil Stepmother. Evil Stepmother is disgusted by Snow White's racial heritage and tries to mold her into the ideal image of a white lady. She also practices dark magic.

Snow White has a hard time growing up under the iron fist of Evil Stepmother. She's beaten, nearly drowned in milk to try to make her skin lighter, and starved until she becomes “beautiful.” Dark, no?

Rather than being obsessed with her own beauty, Evil Stepmother's mirror image becomes pregnant and gives birth to a mirror image child. All she needs to make the child real is to rip Snow White's heart out.

As with many fairy tales, the focus is on atmospheric writing and getting through the plot. There aren't many descriptive passages or character-building scenes. I like to think of this kind of writing as “bird's eye view” writing. You don't get much of the small details in scenes or thoughts inside characters heads, which puts some distance between you and the story. However, this allows for more detailed atmosphere and stories that are completely wrapped up in ~100 pages.

You might like this if you enjoy fairy tale retellings, weird westerns, or books with badass female leads. This book is very atmospheric and does an excellent job of turning a somewhat whimsical children's story into something dark and weird.

This might not be for you if you need characters that you can emotionally invest yourself in, descriptive passages, or lots of dialogue.