If I am going to read a book based in a fairy tale, I do appreciate the light touch going on here. The elements of the story are heavy and present, but the fairy tale world created in this one are considerably small in comparison. In addition, I appreciate how the different narrative voices moved us away from the traditional telling of the story and especially gave us half the book in the voice of the “evil” stepmother.
In this story, we fist meet Boy, a white woman who runs away from an abusive father, and settles down with Arturo, a scholar and young single father. It’s the 1950s in the United States. The story moves forward and Boy grows closer to her new stepdaughter Snow, but when she gets pregnant this relationship becomes more complex and problematic. After Bird is born, Snow is sent away to live with relatives and the novel switches to the later on voice of Bird, now 13. The estranged sisters keep in close contact via letters and discover they share a lot in common beyond having the same father.
So on its surface this novel more or less plays along with the Snow White tale, but there’s not so much evil or magic in it.
For me the writing is more or less just fine and the story in interesting in its narrative voice, but then it’s a frustrating novel because the book is supposed to be about America, in the voice of Americans, and I think it fails to do this well.
(Photo: https://www.amazon.com/Boy-Snow-Bird-Helen-Oyeyemi/dp/1594631395/ref=sr_1_4?crid=2P3VYYUHWUJ0X&keywords=helen+oyeyemi&qid=1550098078&s=gateway&sprefix=helen+oy%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-4)