Natasha has always lived in her sister Clara’s shadow, until a fateful Christmas Eve changes everything. Drosselmeyer’s enchanted Nutcracker leads her into the Kingdom of Sweets, where the Sugar Plum Fairy offers power, gifts… and dark bargains. As Natasha uncovers the destiny written for her, she must choose between the world she knows and the magical one that tempts her. *** soft spoilers might follow-up here *** I really liked Erika Johansen's black and gloomy take on the story of the "Sugar plum Fairy". It's the first book l've read by the author and I have to say that I really liked the writing style. The world building was relatively well described, I was able to form a good picture of the surroundings straight away, as well as the characters. On the whole, there are no complaints on my part. As for the story itself? I liked that the story went in a darker direction than most sugar plum fairy retellings. Of course the Sugar Plum Fairy story is a bit creepy in general, I remember being quite scared of it when I was younger, but that's quite normal with most stories. This retelling was more about the twin sister's connection and how the curse that was placed on them affected their lives both negatively and positively. We experience the story through the eyes of one of the twin sisters, nastascha, who has led a miserable existence since her twin sister Clara was blessed by her godfather, but Natascha was cursed. We learn of the suffering caused to Natascha by her godfather's curse, of sorrow, sadness and jealousy towards her twin sister who is loved by everyone. I liked how much we can put ourself in the shoes of the cursed sister and understand her feelings and desire for revenge. After Clara even takes her sister's lover away, we can feel the most sympathy for Natascha and anti-sympathy for Clara. And after being constantly betrayed, lied to and mistreated by everyone, Nastacha finally takes revenge. Combining the story with something very evil and dark was an interesting take, also how the story plays out and ends. I especially liked that the romance wasn't the main point of the story. However, at some points, even though I understood Natasha's feelings, it was a bit too extreme and exaggerated for me. A lot of time nastacha, even when hurt, seemed not to think clear and logical. Nevertheless, I can recommend the book to anyone, regardless of the Christmas season.

I am so confused? While I really like Johansens writing style, its very graphic, which made me able to get pulled into this world, the way the story unfolds just didn’t sit right with me. Because it is a dark retelling of The Nutcracker, I was fine with being confronted by characters, that I maybe wouldn’t like but in this book, I couldn’t finde a single character, that I could like. Also up until half of the book I wasn’t sure what the point of the story was? Surely “beauty”, “longing” and “unwanted love” were the overlaying topic but the way those topics were conveyed left me just so confused. Natasha (MC) was slut-shaming her pretty sister (and her friends) from the beginning. In general, every woman, who is not in for the conservative lifestyle gets hated by her. Nat just drowns herself in hate (towards her or others) but at the same time views herself better as “those” girls, because she reads or doesn’t go partying (she doesn’t get invited but who would want to anyway?) Besides those, very, very harmful views of femininity, we are slapped in the face with unwanted love from one, utterly boring guy, Nat is in love with. Somehow her existence evolves around having his attention. Nat isn’t a girls-girl and the biggest “I am not like other girls”, which made so hard for me to read through the book. All in all I’m not sure, if Nat was written the way for us readers to critically reflect on internalised misogyny (again, I don’t need to like the MC, to like the book) or if Johansen is trying to convey her views on femininity through Nat?