Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"The Goblin King was the silhouette around which my music was composed, and the Goblin Grove was the place my shadows came to life."

I have mixed feelings towards this book. I was first drawn to it because it was advertised as being inspired by Labyrinth. I have such love for that movie that I was already sold on Wintersong before I had even touched the book. Now I feel like I should have known it would explode in my face.

The story revolves around Elisabeth. She loves music more than anything but has learned to hide her compositions out of fear of rejection. Her entire life she has been told her music would never amount to anything because she is a woman and not talented enough. The only one she has shared her music with is The Goblin King, who met her in the forest outside her house when she was little. But now Elisabeth is grown and when he kidnaps her sister she must follow them Underground to rescue her.

Sounds familiar doesn’t it? Well, the sister is rescued before the first half of the book, from there the focus is her relationship with The Goblin King. It’s not that I didn’t like them together, I did in fact, but there were little things about them that I wasn't a fan of.

Elisabeth on one side came off as the exact sort of heroine I dislike. She has been denied her music for too long, making her a it resentful towards her successful brother. She is so insecure of her looks, so convinced that she is ugly that she resents her beautiful sister. And refers to herself as the untalented, unlovely sibling. She whines and complains way too much for my taste.

The Goblin King is David Bowie. He is described almost exactly like Jareth from Labyrinth, and even quotes him from time to time:

“I’ve given you everything you’ve ever wanted. I’m tired of living up to your expectations.”

As someone who loves David Bowie deeply, I must admit it was kind of charming at times. Minus the quoting part, that seemed a bit lazy to me. But it made it very difficult for me not to compare Wintersong and Labyrinth during the entire time.

My biggest issue was the writing style. While it’s lyrical and it works perfectly for the music descriptions, I don’t think it does when applied to people. Especially on the sex scenes. I kid you not, the first time they slept together I had no idea what was happening, the writing was too abstract for me.

I don’t think Wintersong is a bad book by any means. There were things I definitely enjoyed, most of all the romance (at least when they had their clothes on). But there were also many things I did not. I will probably pick up the second book anyway, I'm still curious about what will happen next.

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