EyebrarianPrize winnersGet the app

Books › Girls made of snow and glass

Cover of Girls made of snow and glass

Girls made of snow and glass

Melissa Bashardoust

400 pages

A wintry, feminist reimagining of a classic tale that shatters the mirror of female rivalry to explore the complex love between a stepmother and daughter.

Where to buyBooks like this

What it feels like

Reading this book feels like stepping into a beautifully frosted, slightly dangerous winter landscape. It unfolds at a steady, deliberate pace, weaving past and present to build a tense, melancholic atmosphere where magic is both a marvel and a violation. The prose carries the dark, enchanting cadence of a classic fairy tale, yet it is sharply focused on the internal lives of its female protagonists. Instead of a simple battle between good and evil, the narrative offers an introspective exploration of mother-daughter dynamics, forced rivalry, and the desperate yearning for love and agency. It will deeply satisfy readers who crave feminist fantasy, queer romance, and stories that allow women to reshape their own destinies rather than succumb to the roles written for them.

Mood
  • wintry
  • atmospheric
  • melancholic
  • tense
Tone
  • feminist
  • introspective
  • earnest
  • dark
Pace
steady
Themes
mother-daughter dynamics · female rivalry and solidarity · reclaiming agency · queer romance · the burden of beauty
The writing
Atmospheric and fairy-tale-esque, weaving dark magic with sharp emotional introspection.
The arc
Moves from cold isolation and forced rivalry toward a hard-won understanding of self-worth and agency.
Who it's for
Readers who love feminist fairy tale retellings that center complex relationships between women and queer romance.
Content notes
  • parental death
  • child abuse
  • body horror / magical surgery

About the book

"Frozen meets The Bloody Chamber in this feminist fantasy reimagining of the Snow White fairytale At sixteen, Mina's mother is dead, her magician father is vicious, and her silent heart has never beat with love for anyone--has never beat at all, in fact, but she'd always thought that fact normal. She never guessed that her father cut out her heart and replaced it with one of glass. When she moves to Whitespring Castle and sees its king for the first time, Mina forms a plan: win the king's heart with her beauty, become queen, and finally know love. The only catch is that she'll have to become a stepmother. Fifteen-year-old Lynet looks just like her late mother, and one day she discovers why: a magician created her out of snow in the dead queen's image, at her father's order. But despite being the dead queen made flesh, Lynet would rather be like her fierce and regal stepmother, Mina. She gets her wish when her father makes Lynet queen of the southern territories, displacing Mina. Now Mina is starting to look at Lynet with something like hatred, and Lynet must decide what to do--and who to be--to win back the only mother she's ever known...or else defeat her once and for all. Entwining the stories of both Lynet and Mina in the past and present, Girls Made of Snow and Glass traces the relationship of two young women doomed to be rivals from the start. Only one can win all, while the other must lose everything--unless both can find a way to reshape themselves and their story"--

Description from Open Library.

Books like Girls made of snow and glass

See why they match