Gilded by Marissa Meyer

In Gilded, #1 New York Times-bestselling author Marissa Meyer returns to the fairytale world with this haunting tale.

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.

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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.

Let it be known that I did not have Sexy Rumplestiltskin on my 2021 bingo card. But here we are. (Also, I don’t even necessarily find Gild — our Rumplestiltskin — particularly sexy but it’s just a fun phrase.)

Marissa Meyer is — pardon my pun — the golden standard for fairytale retellings. I remember exactly where and when I was when I finished her debut, Cinder, and experienced the shocking yet satisfying sensation of being completely swept away by a book. You know that first awareness of reality after waking up? Like that, except with fiction. She had created a story world so distinctive and visceral that I literally forgot who I was and forgot I was reading until I’d put down the book, and realized I was in my seventh-period study hall.

Provoking that sensation means you’re a gifted writer, in my book. It means you’ve dominated every part of a reader’s senses and psyche, and temporarily hijacked their identity. Congratulations. You’ve won fiction.

Marissa Meyer has this gift of being able to take a weird little idea and completely subvert a classic tale using that strange, odd hook. It means her books are strange pitches to reluctant readers (“think Cinderella, but with cyborgs”) but are masterfully rewarding for those who venture into the unknown. She embellishes to the best extent.

Reading Gilded was a surprise for me, actually. I haven’t had the patience for high fantasy lately, as my focus has been so dominated by other tasks. After a bad day last weekend, I picked up Gilded at the bookstore, needing desperately to turn off my phone and be immersed in somewhere else. She was the perfect author to fulfill that need.

The First Impression

The book starts by introducing our narrator, Serilda, as a liar. Her dishonesty is embedded in the italicized fairy tale structure of the first snippet because immediately once we’re ripped to the here-and-now (her surrounded by enraptured children wanting to know more), she’s called out for twisting the story. To her credit, she shrugs it off and doesn’t seem to care. I immediately doubted what I’d just read, but had such a rush of interest and thrill because the high fantasy info-dumping structure lends itself so well to a lying narrator, but I couldn’t recall having read one before.

Additionally, someone who admits to being dishonest — an honest act in and of itself — is somewhat refreshing on the spectrum of morality. My understanding of morality is constantly shaped and re-thought based on my reading of fiction. (And studies prove that too.)

The honeyed, intimate village feel is an autumnal fairytale atmosphere that nestles perfectly within my November reads. As the weather dipped and began to feel crisp, reading Gilded outside was exactly what I wanted to be doing.

Admittedly, I did not read it for the description. I read it because it’s Marissa Meyer tackling another fairytale. I didn’t pay much thought to the Rumplestiltskin retelling elements until they really got going. The book is about 500-ish pages, and so it took awhile to get there, while I just soaked up the setting, characterization, and depth. As an author, she’s reliable and trustworthy.

The Plot

The plot itself was intriguing once it got going. For those who have read and loved A Court of Thorns and Roses, A Curse So Dark and Lonely, or An Enchantment of Ravens, the structure itself of being whisked away by a dark fairy king is familiar: a trope we know and love, particularly in YA fantasy. I think that because Serilda is an unreliable narrator, it’s why the tired-not-wired, shouldn’t-you-have-pubbed-this-in-2015 exhaustion doesn’t apply. It still feels fresh, particularly because it’s about to twist a fairytale we haven’t given much thought to rather than Beauty & the Beast.

Basically, the book is structured by the unusual moons that mark time passing throughout the unnamed landscape. On these certain moons, the Hunt rides (fae lore) and villagers should lock their doors lest they get caught outside and devoured. Serilda, in her attempt to save two woodland creatures, gets caught by the Erkling, and only manages to extract herself by lying about the need to gather straw so she can spin it into gold. Unusual take, no?

Naturally, the next moon, he comes to steal her away — which is when she meets Gild. Over the next 500 pages or so, Serilda has to figure out how to get out of the bargain with her life.

The Execution

Admittedly, there was little instant gratification in this book. I read because I love the author, and ultimately decided it was about a four star read for me (excellent), but felt like the plot somewhat lost its steam after the original parameters were established. In fairness, I hadn’t realized it was the first book in a series, so ultimately reached the end and realized that the story was just at its beginning. Still, I generally believe an important part of craft is to ensure that each volume in a series feels self-contained and has a distinctive core conflict.

Serilda had her struggles, and clearly had a bunch to figure out, but I felt like the mysteries themselves were somewhat vague. What was the story behind the castle? Who was Gild? How would she get out? At a certain point, her “new normal” of being swept away had been established and it didn’t feel like there was enough concrete forward momentum; we didn’t have a clue how she would get herself out. It felt plodding and I read for the reading experience rather than the plot.

I think the pacing would have benefited from having a light at the end of the tunnel, or some false starts as to how she would solve her situation. Instead, for awhile it felt like Serilda was floundering, and so was the reader. That being said, she was always on the hunt for something, even if it was Sexy Rumplestiltskin, and I was overall intrigued by the mystery even if not completely sold. And despite my hesitations about the success of the plotting — an unfair standard because Meyer’s first series was completely perfect in that regard — I still experienced that out-of-body magic that makes me see her as one of the Greats.

The ending was solid, and she pulled no punches, so ultimately I give her mad props for always doing the difficult thing even when it’s tough to pull out. Bits of the plot circle back around to themselves, and so there’s a certain amount of brilliance required that puts me consistently in a state of awe. The plot itself is smart, even though it could have been tighter, so I’m excited to read the later books.

The Characters & Romance

Okay, I’ll stop joking about Sexy Rumplestiltskin. I’m not sure what I’d been expecting, but didn’t go in assuming there would be a romance. It’s more hot and heavy than her other books, but I actually wouldn’t call it a love story because Serilda literally knows nothing about Gild. But I digress. That’s a trope you buy into if you read a decent amount of YA, and it didn’t necessarily bother me because it aligned with the time period, worldbuilding, and overall flow of the fairytale story.

Our Rumplestiltskin was sweet and mysterious and oh-so-haunted, and seemed kind of fragile. I’m curious to know how their relationship goes, especially considering the betrayal/cost of needing to compensate him for spinning the straw into gold. (Firstborn child, anyone?)

The romance element works because the atmosphere skews romantic/intimate rather than larger-than-life the way Meyer’s other books do. The conflict is on a smaller scale.

Most intriguing to me is that Serilda makes no secret of her willingness to embellish stories — not involuntarily, not for noble or naive reasons, but because she enjoys lying. I’m always intrigued by bold choices like these that immediately cast a protagonist in a flawed light, because it takes much more talent to make them sympathetic afterwards. I’m also respectful of Meyer’s willingness to inflict real loss and heartache on her characters.

Overall

Overall, I feel cleansed by this book. Satisfied. I asked for a book that would suck me in — lush and creative and cinematic — and Gilded delivered. That quality and well-roundedness is a reason I trust Marissa Meyer to deliver a great story, and why I’m more likely to opt for her books over an unknown in the bookstore. Furthermore, although she nails writing, atmosphere, and plotting (mostly, in this case), I can always trust that her hook will be completely unique and unlike what we’ve read previously in the high fantasy/retelling space. Her stories feel visceral, whereas I usually expect a certain amount of distance from the story within those genres.

My gut impression is that Gilded reads like part The School for Good and Evil and part The Wrath and the Dawn, which is a winning combination. I relaxed into this book. Recently, being able to say that feels like a win. The warmth of the atmosphere, the curiosity of the mystery, and the intelligence of the worldbuilding are genuine strengths. I was especially thrilled by the unreliable narrator aspect (more prominent towards the beginning) and how it tied into the familiar fairytale core. It was a definite winner for me, and a read to which I loved to return throughout my week.

For fans of:

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh; The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani; Cinder, of course; A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer; A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas; An Enchantment of Ravens.