I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Stitching Snow by R.C. Lewis
Published by Disney Hyperion on October 14, 2014
Pages: 338
Format: ARC
Source: the publisher
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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.

Stitching Snow was an epic Snow White retelling that will satisfy fans of Marissa Meyer. The world is intriguing, Essie was a kick-butt character who refused to sit on the sidelines and the Snow White parallels were really interesting and so fun to spot. R.C. Lewis is an amazing writer. The story just came alive for me and I was completely absorbed in it until the very last page.

I really loved Essie. She was strong, independent and smart – qualities I love seeing in a main character. From the very first page, it was established that she was not some maiden in distress who needed rescuing. That’s definitely a far cry from the fairy tale this story is based on. I guessed her “secret” early on in the story, too. It was pretty obvious, but I still loved the reveal. Essie had to grow up a lot along the way. She matured, accepted her past and embraced her future. Basically, she was just a very strong character, in my opinion, and she became stronger as the story unfolded.

My feelings towards Dane went back and forth several times. I loved him in the beginning, then I hated him, then I _______ him. It’s tough to talk about without spoilers, honestly. But I will say that I loved him and Essie and I loved his character development from the beginning to the end. He has such a tragic back-story and I feel so bad for him. But in the end, his story really feels complete and I’m happy with how everything ended for him.

I looooved the Seven Drones (a.k.a the Seven Dwarfes!). This was such a fun, creative way to incorporate the original fairy tale into a sci-fi retelling. I loved it, loved it, loved it! Fans of Marissa Meyer who adore Iko will adore Dimwit, who was by far my favorite of the seven.

The “evil queen” character was beyond evil. I mean, she gives the queen from Snow White a run for her money! The things she did and tried to do.. But believe me, she gets what’s coming to her in the end! As does the king. Again, I wish I could be less vague than that, but this book is a spoiler minefield and I don’t want to ruin anything for anyone!

I loved, loved, loved Kip! Right from the beginning, he became one of my favorite characters. As we learned more about him, his backstory and some of the explanations he gave for his actions, I liked him even more. He was like a father-figure to Essie. At times, he was a bodyguard and at times he was a friend. But he was always there for her, one of the few people I always trusted.

There were a LOT of secondary characters in this book. I admired Lewis’ ability to make us care for characters that we didn’t really have a lot of time to get to know. Some note-worthy characters are Petey, all Seven Drones (though, as mentioned, Dimwit stood out for many reasons), Laisa and Theo. Some of them had wonderful happy ending, others had.. Well, not-so-happy endings. But they are/were all wonderful characters that I loved reading about and, in some cases, would have liked to read about more and get to know better.

I think my only complaint with this book is that there were a few sections that dragged a bit – but very few. And there were a couple minor plot points left dangling – again, very few. Otherwise, this was an amazing, amazing book and I can’t say anything bad about it.

I believe Stitching Snow is going to be a stand-alone. And if so, I absolutely loved the ending. It was the perfect combination of realistic ending (tragedy mixed with triumph) and happily ever after. I was very satisfied with how it ended and where all the characters were at the end. The last 20 pages or so were insane, epic and my absolute favorite part of the book. I truly can’t wait to see what R.C. Lewis comes up with next – I’m definitely hoping for another fairy tale/sci-fi retelling!

If you couldn’t tell from my gushing review, I definitely recommend this book! And I highly, highly recommend it to fans of Marissa Meyer.