Marshmallow reviews Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

Today Marshmallow is talking to Sprinkles about Thornhedge, a 2023 book by T. Kingfisher that won the Hugo Award for Best Novella in 2024.

Sprinkles: So Marshmallow, I know you love retellings of fairy tales, so I thought you would appreciate this book. Was I right?

Marshmallow: Yes.

S: Yay! I liked it too. So tell us a bit about the book.

M: This is a retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story. I had already read and reviewed Thornwood, another retelling of Sleeping Beauty, and that was pretty good too, but this one turns things even more upside down.

S: What do you mean?

M: Well, first of all, the narrator is a timid creature who calls herself Toadling, and we eventually learn that she is the fairy godmother who was the one to put the princess to sleep. But nothing is as we think we knew it to be.

S: You are being quite cryptic Marshmallow.

M: Yes, I am a very cryptic bunny.

S: That might not be optimal for one who is reviewing a book!

M: Well, I do not want to spill all the beans!

S: Okay, yes, you do have a point, but maybe then let us give the readers just a bit more.

M: So as I said, the book tells the story of the fairy godmother of Sleeping Beauty. It turns out that she was a human child, and she was kidnapped from the castle of her parents, a king and a queen, by evil fairies who replaced her with a changeling. Changelings are powerful creatures that seek to cause mischief or even worse. There is a deeper reason for why they cause mischief, but maybe this is enough for the time being.

S: Okay, so changelings in the sense of European folk stories.

M: Yes, not like the changelings of Star Trek Deep Space Nine.

S: Okay, I see.

M: When Toadling was replaced by a changeling, she was taken to the fairy world and was raised there by some frog-like fairy creatures called greenteeth. Then she is then somewhere else by a hare goddess and trained to be a fairy godmother.

S: Ooh, I like it when there are bunnies in the story!

M: Well, I am not sure this hare goddess is a very nice bunny. Anyways, time passes differently in the fairy world and the regular world. So by the time Toadling has spent nine years with the greenteeth and one year in training, the changeling named Fayette has just been “born”. So Toadling goes and becomes her doppelganger’s godmother.

S: That is interesting. Do her parents recognize her?

M: No. The nine years she spent with the greenteeth underwater have changed her and morphed her into a toadlike creature. She can look humanlike, but also can transform into a toad when she wants.

S: I see. So why is Fayette sleeping though?

M: Well, she is not, when Toadling comes by, but Toadling is supposed to do some magic and make her not harm anyone but she is sidetracked somehow and misses the opportunity to do her magic fully. So she ends up trying to stay around the child to make sure she will not harm anyone. But as the child grows up, she becomes more and more unruly, and at some point even starts torturing animals and shows no remorse or pity. So Toadling decides to put her to sleep.

S: That is awful! So these changelings are pure evil?

M: Well, in some sense yes, they are evil. But there is actually a reason for this. The changelings who are placed in human families are also babies when the switch occurs. However, these changelings belong to another plane of existence (the fairy world, I think), so nothing feels real to them. They grow up never really feeling anything, never being able to taste any food, and having metallic things burn them upon touch. The changelings grow up in a world without their kind, knowing in the back of their mind that this was not where they were supposed to be. Ultimately, they grow up confused and alone, and to them, human life is insignificant in this fake, foreign world.

S: Yes, but so was Toadling taken and placed in a totally different world. And she did not become wantonly cruel. She wants to help she wants to diminish people’s pains.

M: You have a point, so maybe the changelings have some tinge of evil in them from the start. But then again, Toadling was in some sense lucky. The greenteeth were kind to her and loved her.

S: But a family whose baby has been replaced by a changeling would also love that changeling, not knowing that it is not their original baby.

M: Yeah, I guess. But I kind of want to believe that nothing is born evil.

S: I can totally understand that and sympathize.

S: Okay back to the story though. So Toadling put the changeling to sleep and then what happens?

M: Well, lots of time passes. Centuries. And Toadling stays around the castle and grows a thorn hedge around it to keep people out. She hopes that people will eventually forget the castle, the story of the princess who fell asleep and so on. Unfortunately people do spread the story, and even though she hides things so well that most do forget, there comes a knight one day who wants to save the princess. But maybe it is not the princess who needs saving but Toadling herself!

S: Ooh, that is a great way to wrap up your summary and keep things still open!

M: Thank you.

S: Okay, so now tell me a bit about the book in terms of style.

M: I liked how the author used a very simple voice but still managed to capture a fairy-tale atmosphere for the story. And she created this character, a timid human-fairy child, that is very likeable. She was only ten when she became this fairy godmother, but then she lived outside the castle for centuries, determined to keep the world safe from the changeling-princess. So she grows up and maybe more mature but she still has this childlike innocence.

S: I agree.

M: I also like how the author develops two themes throughout the book; these were the two I caught: first magic being intertwined and represented and talked about as water. And second how beauty is not surface-level, that beauty is not what you see on the outside, but something else entirely. The changeling looks like a beautiful child, but she is evil and to Toadling she looks terrifying. The greenteeth would look ugly to us probably but to Toadling they are strong, and they define beauty for her. It is somehow related to their strength and skills.

S: But she likes them, they are kind to her, and they are her family.

M: Yes, but it goes beyond that I think. Toadling is raised in this other world based on scavenging and surviving, so she learns to appreciate totally different things, not superficial beauty but something beyond. She values traits like skilled hunting over things like soft smooth skin.

S: That makes sense to me Marshmallow. So this short little book was worth reading then?

M: Yes, 100%. Which is also, coincidentally, how I’d rate it.

S: I was just going to ask that!

M: Well, now you don’t have to!

S: Yes, thank you. Okay, let us wrap this review then. What would you like to tell our readers?

M: Stay tuned for more amazing reviews from the book bunnies!