City of Villains by Estelle Laure (4/5)

City of Villains by Estelle Laure is a fantasy story about how the Disney villains came to be told from the perspective of Mary Elizabeth Heart, the reimagined Queen of Hearts. In Monarch City, magic has disappeared and the hate crimes which followed its disappearance have caused the loss of family members and hope. As a Legacy, a descendant of someone magical, Mary has faced her share of challenges and rivalries. In Monarch City’s high school, tensions run high between Legacies and Narrows, non-magical people, reflecting the rising conflict in the outside world. When her classmate Mally Saint disappears, Mary is assigned to the case as an intern at the Monarch City police department, which could finally solidify her future job. Everything gets more complicated as more people start to disappear and the magic begins to return, albeit in a different form than previously existed. City of Villains was intriguing, and Estelle Laure weaves her story together with the original tales nearly seamlessly. As an origin story for fairy tale characters, it is important to note that in the novel, Mary has moral ambiguity that changes the personality of this book. Where most fairy tales have clear-cut villains and heroes, this book complicates that neat dichotomy with a combination of heroes and villains who may not be exactly what they seem on the surface. Since Mary is just trying to get the best for her community, it changes how readers perceive her as a character. I liked how the author developed the characters throughout the book and kept the plot interesting. Estelle Laure also explores the extreme prejudice between the two factions in Monarch City’s society, highlighting the discrimination and irrational hatred between Legacies and Narrows in an uncomfortable parallel with the blatant prejudice and inequity in today’s polarized society. City of Villains is a well-written fantasy that goes beyond traditional fairy-tales by taking a different perspective on villainy to discuss prejudice without reducing the interesting aspects of the characters or plot.