Dark and Deepest Red

3.5 stars. The writing was beautiful.

It was really lovely writing, I just couldn't stay focused on it all the time for some reason. Good audio production and I appreciated the symbolism of the story.

i think i would've enjoyed this more if i hadn't listened to the audiobook. more thoughts to come

I love this story. There are three parallel stories going on. A girl and a boy in today, and a girl in 16th century Austria.
This is based on the H.C.Andersen fairytale Red Shoes. In it a vain girl loves her beautiful red shoes so much she wears them everywhere and thinks about her shoes when she should be thinking about more important matters, and the shoes get cursed by a “soldier”, so that they dance whether she wishes or not. The shoes dance her off until she asks an executioner cut off her feet, and then the shoes dance off with her feet.
In the book, there's a dancing sickness, and the Romani girl, Lala is accused of having caused it by witchcraft. In modern time the youngsters, Rosella and Emil, are having their own problems to deal with, connected to the shoes.
The epilogue was lovely. I have to say that the fact that I have my own, sweet, kind, loving and loved, trans boy here next to me, makes me love this book even more.