Stitching Snow by R.C. Lewis

Stitching Snow by R.C. Lewis
Hardcover, 328 pages
Published October 14th 2014 by Disney-Hyperion 

Princess Snow is missing.

Her home planet is filled with violence and corruption at the hands of King Matthias and his wife as they attempt to punish her captors. The king will stop at nothing to get his beloved daughter back—but that’s assuming she wants to return at all.

Essie has grown used to being cold. Temperatures on the planet Thanda are always sub-zero, and she fills her days with coding and repairs for the seven loyal drones that run the local mines.

When a mysterious young man named Dane crash-lands near her home, Essie agrees to help the pilot repair his ship. But soon she realizes that Dane’s arrival was far from accidental, and she’s pulled into the heart of a war she’s risked everything to avoid. With the galaxy’s future—and her own—in jeopardy, Essie must choose who to trust in a fiery fight for survival. 

“Brave is being scared and doing what needs to be done anyway”   

The first thing I need to say is this: people have compared this book a lot to Marissa Meyer's Cinder and while there are similarities such as the science fiction setting and a few other elements, Stitching Snow is not a rip off; it has its uniqueness and was utterly fantastic. It needs to be acknowledged that fairy tale retellings are bound to have similar themes and elements, there is no way to really escape that. 

Essie has built a life for herself on the planet Thanda, a planet of miners. However, the life Essie built for herself on Thanda does not involve mining, at least, not her mining physically herself. She is sort of a tech genius - she works on the drones in the mines and even helps repair a ship that crashes nearby. She has seven drones (get it, seven drones...Snow White retelling... ;)) all with adorably appropriate names (Dimwit being my favorite of the drones). Essie is also a kick butt heroine. To make extra cash, she fights the male miners in cage fights, and she nearly always wins. This is something I loved about Essie: she was spunky, had a mind of her own and knew how to take care of herself. She was not just some helpless damsel who let others protect her; no, she knew how to protect herself.

With the crashing ship I mentioned previously comes along Dane. I have to say, he just might be my favorite YA guy ever. He is so protective of Essie. Of course, there was some rough patches with this relationship (isn't there always?) and I cannot really go into detail about anything without giving spoilers but I will say that I feel everything that happened on both sides was justifiable given the circumstances and the hell that was breaking loose as the story went on.

Also, there was no love triangle!! I was so glad! The romance was so swoon worthy but did not detract from the main plot which was wonderful. I have a love/hate relationship with love triangles. Sometimes I am alright with them and can even see how they play an important role in the plot of a story. Though, a majority of the time I cannot stand love triangles especially when they add unnecessary drama and contribute nothing to the plot of the story. It was such a relief to not have to deal with that in this book because it would have completely ruined the story for me. Also, the romance was not insta-love, which is also a plus. 

The writing style was good and the story very fast paced. I was hooked from page one. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves fairy tale retellings. But also, for those of you who love Cinder, just as I did, don't sit there comparing the two. There are similarities yes but Stitching Snow is its own story and is up there among my favorites whihc also includes Cinder.

5 out of 5

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