Blood Red, Snow White [Book Review]

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Title: Blood Red, Snow White

Author: Marcus Sedgwick

Publisher: Orion Children’s Books

Published Date: 1^st July 2007

Rating: 3 Stars

*Thanks to the publisher for the review copy*

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Synopsis: Russia wakes from a long sleep and marches to St Petersburg to claim her birthright. Her awakening will mark the end for the Romanovs, and the dawn of a new era that changed the world. Arthur Ransome, a journalist and writer, was part of it all. He left his family in England and fell in love with Russia and a Russian woman. This is his story.

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Review: I was highly anticipating Blood Red, Snow White because it was going to be the first Sedgwick novel that I’d ever read. He is an author I am constantly hearing about, so I was very excited to read this book. And although I did enjoy it, I didn’t love it as much as I truly wanted to.

This novel is told in a fairytale writing style. In the beginning, I was in awe of it. I thought it added a sense of magic to the entire story, and it worked well with the symbolism that was in place for the Russian Revolution. But as the whole novel continued on, this writing style seemed a little annoying, and the too short chapters became frustrating. I just wanted it to be written a normal writing style and get on with the story. And sure enough, the further into the novel I got, the more the writing style seemed to fade away, almost as if the author was done with that illusion too.

The plot was decently good. It was grounded in the history of the Russian revolution, and then in the world war that followed it. Arthur is a journalist who gets caught up in the political and violent Russia which he has fallen in love with. We get to see a lot of horrors unveiling, but the author keeps us slightly distant from them as he is keeping this a friendly novel than one full of graphics to scare away young readers. I liked the plot well enough.

The characters were decent. We have Arthur, our passionate and slightly clueless main character. He has a child and a wife who he has left behind in England, and then he falls in love with Eva in Russia. Of course, romance in Russia is hard because there are sides, and Eva and him are on different ones. Also, Arthur does love his daughter, although he doesn’t love Ivy anymore. He struggles between the family man and wanting to be with the one he really loves. Although there wasn’t a character I disliked, I didn’t really feel that invested in any of the other characters either.

When it comes down to this novel, I did like it, but I didn’t have a sense of depth when reading this novel. I didn’t care about it enough to love it particularly well. I fell in love with the cover, but that’s as far as my emotions go for the novel itself.

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Gif Summary:

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Links: Goodreads and Amazon!

Olivia’s Question: What’s your favourite fairytale?

Olivia-Savannah x