Gilded - Marissa Meyer

Long ago cursed by the god of lies, a poor miller's daughter has developed a talent for spinning stories that are fantastical and spellbinding and entirely untrue.

Or so everyone believes.

When one of Serilda's outlandish tales draws the attention of the sinister Erlking and his undead hunters, she finds herself swept away into a grim world where ghouls and phantoms prowl the earth and hollow-eyed ravens track her every move. The king orders Serilda to complete the impossible task of spinning straw into gold, or be killed for telling falsehoods. In her desperation, Serilda unwittingly summons a mysterious boy to her aid. He agrees to help her… for a price. Love isn't meant to be part of the bargain.

Soon Serilda realizes that there is more than one secret hidden in the castle walls, including an ancient curse that must be broken if she hopes to end the tyranny of the king and his wild hunt forever.

Blurb taken from Goodreads.

*

I was provided with an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I am such an enormous Marissa Meyer fan, and I was so excited for Gilded for so long! I absolutely jumped at the opportunity to read an advance copy of the book.

It was such an interesting read, and actually felt a lot darker than Meyer's other books. It was quite a mysterious story with a tense atmosphere, which really captured my attention from the very beginning. A reimagining of Rumpelstiltskin's story isn't something you see very often, and I loved how original it felt.

It did take me a little longer to connect with the actual plot than I would have liked, because it felt like quite a long build up before the story started going anywhere. However, by the time I finished it, I was hooked! I already can't wait for the next one.

Rating: ✫✫✫✫

The Story

I absolutely love retellings, and Marissa Meyer is the queen of fairytale stories, so I had really high hopes for this. I haven't yet read a Rumpelstiltskin retelling, and I was really optimistic and open-minded about what it might hold.

It wasn't what I was expecting, but on the other hand I'm not quite sure what I was expecting. It was certainly very original and gave a lot of depth to a story that definitely could have done with some padding out. I was actually very impressed with the depth of the plot, and the amount of detail that went into it. 

As there was such a huge amount of world building going on, it did start quite slow and took me longer than I would have liked to get into it. However, I did actually feel the same with Meyer's other novel, Cinder, yet ended up adoring the full Lunar Chronicles series. I really think I'm going to have the same pay off here - all this detail is going to set the series up beautifully!

There are a lot of questions to answer, so it could be an incredibly satisfying series as a whole. It felt quite supernatural, which isn't very me, but it added to the really interesting fantasy atmosphere that was a little spooky. It was definitely an original direction.

The Characters

Unfortunately, there aren't a huge amount of characters that we really get to know in Gilded, which does come as a bit of a disappointment given how long and detailed the rest of the story is.

The primary characters are our heroine, Serilda; Gild, our Rumpelstiltskin actor, and the mysterious Erlking.

Let's start with Serilda. She has a lot going for her. She's dynamic, interesting and has a lot of potential for a really captivating character. I'm not quite clear on the situation with her eyes, but I'm sure it'll pay off in some really cool mythological way later in the series! My only issue with Serilda is that she's a bit naive, to the point of recklessness and being fairly annoying. But - she has room for a lot of character development, and she carries the heavy story well. 

Gild is a strange choice for a Rumpelstiltskin placeholder. He's not at all what I would have expected from a character based on the original figure, who is supposedly devious, hot-headed and unappealing. If I'm honest, I quite enjoyed that he was nothing like the usual personality of Rumpelstiltskin, with Gild, by contrast, being attractive, kind and endearing. Meyer knows how to take a story and make it surprisingly unpredictable! I have my theories about what will happen to thr ghostly Gild, and I'm looking forward to seeing if I'm right!

The real intrigue for me falls with the Erlking. A completely invented character, he's responsible for so much of the backstory of the book. It's like Meyer has chosen a myth to base the Erlking on and I think however she's done it, she's done it very well. His story slots neatly in with the retelling of Gild and Serilda's story, and it adds another level. I spent a long portion of the book wondering if he was going to be redeemed, or even become a love interest, but to no avail. I've still got my eye open but I'm keen to see where the Erlking's story takes us. To me, it's definitely one of the more interesting elements of the story.

The Verdict

All in all - I really enjoyed this one. It wasn't at all what I was expecting, but it did pleasantly surprise me. In truth, it took me a long time to get into the story, but I really did appreciate the efforts Meyer went to to create a detailed and compelling fantasy world.

I would have liked to have seen a few more characters in more detail, but I really liked the ones we did get to me; I found them intriguing and captivating. I think the novel is a great starting point for a really dynamic series. There's room for improvement, but all the ground work has been laid and I see supreme potential.