Very Late ARC Review: The Evil Queen (The Forest of Good and Evil #1) by Gena Showalter

Posted January 23, 2021 by Lisa Mandina in Review / 2 Comments

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

Very Late ARC Review:  The Evil Queen (The Forest of Good and Evil #1) by Gena ShowalterThe Evil Queen by Gena Showalter
Series: The Forest of Good and Evil #1
Published by Harlequin Teen on June 25, 2019
Genres: YA Retelling, YA Fairy Tale
Pages: 538
Source: Books for trade
Format: ARC
My Rating: five-stars
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Synopsis:

Classic fairy tales are turned on their heads as strong heroines take charge and save the princes and the world in this magical action and romance-filled trilogy from the New York Times bestselling author of the Everlife novels and the White Rabbit Chronicles, beginning with a teen prophesied to become the Evil Queen from Snow White who refuses to be pigenonholed into her destiny.

Far, far away, in the magical realm of Enchantia, creatures of legend still exist, magic is the norm, and fairytales are real. Except, fairytales aren’t based on myths and legends of the past—they are prophecies of the future. Though Princess Everly Morrow was brought to the mortal realm as an infant, she knows she’s destined to rule a kingdom in Enchantia, thus fulfilling a beloved fairytale. But which one?

At seventeen, when an ability to commune with mirrors manifests, she begins to suspect the truth, and it’s more sinister than anyone ever realized…

She is destined to be Snow White’s greatest enemy, the Evil Queen.

With powers beyond her imagination or control—and determined to prove herself good—Everly returns to the land of her birth, smack dab in the middle of the creepiest forest of all time. There, Everly meets Roth Charmaine, the supposed Prince Charming. Their attraction is undeniable, but their relationship is doomed. As bits and pieces of the prophecy unfold, Everly faces one betrayal after the other, and giving in to her dark side proves more tempting every day. Soon, she will have to choose. Be a hero and walk away, or become the queen—and villain—of her dreams.

The battle between good and evil is on!

My Review:

This is one of those books that I picked up and was immediately angry with myself for not picking this up the moment that I got it! I loved the other YA series I’d read by Gena Showalter, the Everlife trilogy. I think that I searched for someone to have a copy of this on Twitter for a books for trade deal, and was lucky enough to get it. In fact, when I finished this, I immediately jumped onto Twitter again and reached out to see if there had been any physical ARCs of the second book that came out this past fall. Because I’d love to have a matching set!

Now when I started, I didn’t realize that this was not only going to be a fairy tale world for a setting, Enchantia, but that it also would begin in the real world that we are in, a world with no magic, that we know of. Basically the main character finds out that she is part of the Snow White fairy tale, but isn’t exactly sure what character she is. She believes she is the evil queen, hence the title, for the majority of the book. And something that we learn with this story, something I’ve seen in a lot of the reimagining stories for villains, is that we are all heroes in our own stories, and others are the villains. I loved the way this story handled that, and how it made it all work in the end.

I totally was on Everly’s side for the story. But I was also wanting her not to do the vengeance actions she was going to do when she decided to just own the character everyone had pushed her into becoming. And oh did I love Prince Roth Charmaine. I was so mad at him during certain parts, but really, I just adored him by the end.

This book really had everything. There was humor, but there were also so many moments I was moved to tears on Everly’s behalf. The world was beautifully written, so vivid. I think this would be a great tv series. Similar to the tv show that I did watch all but the last seasons of, Once Upon a Time. Loved, loved, loved, and now I need the second book!

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2 responses to “Very Late ARC Review: The Evil Queen (The Forest of Good and Evil #1) by Gena Showalter

    • Lisa Mandina

      I’m not getting any info on physical ARCs, so I’ll probably wait until it is in paperback so it sort of matches my ARC of the first one. Thanks for stopping by!

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