Marissa Meyer is one of the absolute queens of fairy tale retellings, so it's fair to say I had very high expectations going into this one. I think one of the things I found challenging about this book is also one of its strengths- it's thoroughly seeped in folklore, requiring careful reading to understand all the creatures and the world this story is set in. This didn't land as effectively for me as I'd hoped- Heartless is, most likely, my favorite retelling of any story, of all time, and Gilded is quite different (and, it turns out, not a standalone as I'd expected). There are still a number of really interesting takes on the Rumpelstiltskin story within this that I really did enjoy- both Serilda and Gild are more fleshed out as characters and truly both are more sympathetic than I remember finding the characters as the story was presented to me as a child. It'll be interesting to see how this story concludes.