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Ash

Lo, Malinda. Book - 2009 Teen Fiction / Lo, Malinda 1 On Shelf No requests on this item Community Rating: 4 out of 5

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Locations
Call Number: Teen Fiction / Lo, Malinda
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length Call Number Checkout Length Item Status
Downtown Teen, 1st Floor
4-week checkout
Teen Fiction / Lo, Malinda 4-week checkout On Shelf

In this variation on the Cinderella story, Ash grows up believing in the fairy realm that the king and his philosophers have sought to suppress, until one day she must choose between a handsome fairy cursed to love her and the King's Huntress whom she loves.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Excellent Fairy Tale submitted by pkooger on March 28, 2010, 12:57pm Ash, by Malinda Lo, is first and foremost a fairy tale. It is a fairy tale not just because it contains magic and fairies (it does have both), but because it is a story of a girl who makes a bargain with powers unknown, and has to pay a very high price. Stories such as Beauty and the Beast, Rumpelstiltskin, Rapunzel, and many other fairy tales involve the theme of bargaining with the supernatural to achieve the impossible. Often, the person who makes the bargain with the witch/fairy/beast/djinn ends up losing him or herself in the end. Ash's magical benefactor is no Disney Fairy Godmother. Her wishes are not free.

Ash holds on to the base elements of the story of Cinderella, but it is different enough that I wouldn't call it a retelling. I really enjoyed the duality of her relationship with Sidhean versus her relationship with Kaisa. The fairy creature seems to epitomize obsession, fascination and glamor while the Huntress is all red-blooded passion and offers to Ash what we as fairy tale readers might call "true love." Which of those is really stronger in the end? The answer might be different than you expect.

Good book submitted by ashflowtuff on June 28, 2012, 1:04pm I really enjoyed this book. The story was interesting, it was not predictable, and it was very well written. I am definitely going to be reading other books by this author.

Fun read submitted by cowmooflage on July 23, 2014, 8:35am Interesting retake on the classic Cinderella story. The elements are similar but this story definitely stands on its own. It's also definitely more of a fantasy story than romance

Beautiful and touching, sad and poignant. submitted by torikaebaya on February 4, 2017, 12:56pm “I’ll give thee fairies to attend on thee, and they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep, and sing while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep, and I will purge thy mortal grossness so that thou shalt like an airy spirit go”.

As a thinly-veiled retelling of Cinderellla, Malinda Lo’s Ash is likely the most fun and enchanting version yet. Aisling (AKA Ash) is so naturally humble and full of life it’s a bittersweet pill to travel with her through her childhood traumas and fears and later into undeserved servitude. Yet every setback is punctuated with a silvery visitation from fairy folk, as the enchanted forest is Ash’s sole solace.

Although Ash may have been written for a younger audience, a reader of any age is helpless but to be transmigrated to the state of mind of a child in wonder. Ash is interspersed with a great many fairy tales (I am ashamed I cannot say which are historical tales), and as the reader descends into each, one cannot almost hear a merry musical accompaniment dancing along the wooden trails. It is unfortunate that Ash doesn’t have illustrations, but in truth none are necessary to behold the clever vistas Lo paints.

Admittedly Aisling’s step-sister and mother are highly two-dimensional, which comes off as somewhat odd given that Sidhead (Aisling’s Changling champion) is endowed with such mysterious and mercurial moods. It’s far too easy to cast Lady Isobel into the “wicked step-mother” role with her inhuman antics. Generally an antagonist needs to be more than simply the protagonist’s enemy, but keeping with the Cinderella form was obviously important to the author. Fortunately Clara has more shades of gray than her sister: if one is supposed to view Clara as more human and humane than her Ana and Isobel, or even as a chrysalis, why then did she never lift a hand to protect Aisling and stop the abuse? Clara’s inaction in the face of her sister’s torture does nothing but paint her solidly in the archetype “wicked” colors, it’s difficult to say if this was the author’s intention.

As a piece of young adult literature Ash has a strong candidacy. It’s fun. It’s cute. It’s mischievious. It’s sad and poignant. It’s a beautiful and touching young lesbian love story and despite her station, Aisling fights for her love and follows her heart. The protagonist overcomes incredible adversity and even takes responsibility and faces the music when it’s time to pay the piper. Aisling undergoes a dramatic change and learns to take control of her own destiny from those that would lead her to ruin.

I thoroughly enjoyed this piece and am only sad it was so short. Maybe the fire that burns half as long burns twice as brightly; hopefully it was short by design and not on the advice of the publisher. I eagerly await Malinda Lo’s next work.

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PUBLISHED
New York : Little, Brown and Co., 2009.
Year Published: 2009
Description: 264 p. ; 22 cm.
Language: English
Format: Book

READING LEVEL
Lexile: 1050

ISBN/STANDARD NUMBER
9780316040105
9780316040099
0316040096

SUBJECTS
Fairy tales.
Self-realization -- Fiction.
Fairies -- Fiction.
Stepfamilies -- Fiction.
Hunting -- Fiction.
Orphans -- Fiction.
Lesbians -- Fiction.