Snow White & The Huntsman (A Novel) by Lily Blake

• Paperback: 220 pages
• Publisher: Atom (1 Jun 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1907411704

A breathtaking new vision of a legendary tale. Snow White is the only person in the land fairer than the evil queen who is out to destroy her. But in a twist to the fairytale, the Huntsman ordered to take Snow White into the woods to be killed becomes her protector and mentor in a quest to vanquish the Evil Queen.

Cover: Obviously the movie poster and I love it!  The contrast of light and dark works so well, and the movie was visually stunning so I was pleased to have a little bit of that on the book cover.

I loved both the book and the movie.  

Lily Blake has perfectly adapted the screenplay into a tie-in-novel.

The pacing was perfect, I was never bored and the descriptions were spot on- she didn't write a paragraph when a sentence would suffice so instead of an incredibly long book we have an amazing 220 pages.

I thought the movie was slow in some places and too fast in others which left some of the plot tangled and a tad confusing but reading the novel made everything that little bit clearer.  There are a few extra scenes in the book that don't stray far from the movie and they're great.

I loved that in the book we had Snow White, Ravenna AND the Huntsman's point of view.  While the movie was great I liked that in the book we get more of an insight into these characters, how they are thinking and feeling.  Particularly with the Huntsman.  Oh how I love him.

I don't think it matters if you read the book first or see the movie.  I saw the movie first and think this worked best for me.  But I do definitely recommend doing both. 

The only thing lacking is a breath taking romance.  For me there has to be some romance in a fairytale re-telling.  Don't get me wrong I loved the dark, sinister take on it, and that Snow White become totally kick-ass.  But it needed a sweet romance to balance everything out. 

There is a sequel planned and while I think I would enjoy one, seeing the characters and the whole again, where the book and movie leaves off I don't see why there would be a second- of course I would like to see the whole lack-of-romance-issue resolved but I don't see what else can happen.

4/5 stars to both the book and movie.  I loved the action and dark feel but the lack of romance left me wanting a bit more.