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4.08 AVERAGE
4.08 AVERAGE
PLEASE do not read this whole thing start to finish like a novel. Big mistake my friend. It totally ruined it for me. I hated every second of reading this after the first 5 or so stories (there are 55) because if we’re being honest, they are basically all the same. There would probably be hoards of people that would gasp in horror at that opinion but they can suck it. We all know it’s true. To be clear, the stories aren’t bad! I found it really interesting reading the originals of the stories I knew and a handful of the others had me quite intrigued. I just wish that I had left it on my shelf to occasionally peruse instead of having it sit on my bedside table glaring at me to finish it in a linear fashion. So while I had a terrible experience reading most of this, I understand that that is entirely my fault and realistically I know that if I hadn’t been a dumby dumb dumb I would settle at 3 stars. So there you go. Also, is it just me or are the stories nowhere near as gruesome as people make them out to be? Like I still wouldn’t read these to children, but mostly because I wouldn’t want them to think that a man can just point at a woman and have her as his wife like a toddler choosing a carnival prize while she gets no say whatsoever, because goddamn we’re there a lot of stories with that exact situation played off as the happy ending for everyone.
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
I am honestly stuck on what I want to rate this, obviously there is no half star option but I am torn between giving this 2 stars, and 1.5 stars. Anyway, I wanted to give up by the end of February because I was kind of over this series. Some of the stories are just repetitive. So from March - June I would read a few pages here and there while doing my hair, but by July I wanted to get this book off of my "currently reading" list. Anyway, here is what I took from this series:
- Girls are stupid, girls are vain, girls can walk on a fruit or a vegetable without squishing it thus proving they are girls, and finally girls should marry men old enough to be their parent.
- Incest is okay between a father and daughter.
- A Dwarf is always magical, be nice to them.
- Animals sometimes aren't just animals, they could be magical, or even royalty.
- Witches are always old mean women.
- You must do whatever your parents tell you because they know everything.
- Don't wish for something out loud because there is a 99% chance it will happen.
- Kidnapping a child is okay if a child is bad.
- Oh, and you die in the end... a good portion of the time.
One star taken off for repetitiveness, one star taken off for having women look stupid a majority of the time, and one star taken off for the way they portray incest. I really want to take off .5 stars for just being annoyed with it, but I don’t think that would be fair. But hey, I am just glad I finished reading this.
- Girls are stupid, girls are vain, girls can walk on a fruit or a vegetable without squishing it thus proving they are girls, and finally girls should marry men old enough to be their parent.
- Incest is okay between a father and daughter.
- A Dwarf is always magical, be nice to them.
- Animals sometimes aren't just animals, they could be magical, or even royalty.
- Witches are always old mean women.
- You must do whatever your parents tell you because they know everything.
- Don't wish for something out loud because there is a 99% chance it will happen.
- Kidnapping a child is okay if a child is bad.
- Oh, and you die in the end... a good portion of the time.
One star taken off for repetitiveness, one star taken off for having women look stupid a majority of the time, and one star taken off for the way they portray incest. I really want to take off .5 stars for just being annoyed with it, but I don’t think that would be fair. But hey, I am just glad I finished reading this.
dark
tense
God. This was the longest I've taken to read a book ( started 25th march). As well as the thickest book with a page count of a thousand something.
I've owned a copy of this book for God knows how long, according to the price sticker 2013..so maybe over a decade.. since I'm working my way through my physical books, it's about time I gave attention to the Grimm Brothers.
The introduction breaks down who these writers were, and how driven they were with story telling and how up until their death they continued to piece together different things. It was also interesting to learn that even though they published a story, they'd go back and revise it and republish. Even changing it for different audiences from trying to make it suitable for suitable before pushing it more for the middle class mature readers.
The first story "the frog king" is a story that i feel like I've heard before, not as princess and the frog but as it's own though the ending is a bit abrupt.
Even though the introduction did mention the brothers had a habit of abruptly ending their stories.
The wolf and the seven children is another story I've heard before.
A lot of the stories are repeated but tweaked just a little, like the introduction mentions. So you'll read the same story multiple times and end up glaring over.
Grimm's Fairy Tales are a classic dark staple for many. Filled with interesting stories and life lessons.
This was...weird. I enjoyed a lot of the stories. Some are very familiar, some are vaguely familiar but a little altered, and some I don't know at all. Usually the unfamiliar ones are the more batshit ones, guess it's harder to make the truly nutty ones palatable to the masses. I feel like I would have gotten more out of this if I'd been reading it with an accompanying class or set of notes on the symbolism and meanings of the stories. There are a lot of repeated themes, to the point that I'd call them tropes, and some of those left me very confused. There are also many that read like morality tales, which isn't surprising because that's actually what a lot of storytelling is intended for, but that moral is lost on me. Sometimes I think I'm getting the moral, but it seems like such a ridiculous lesson that I must be misunderstanding. Either that or times truly have changed (which is quite probable, I'm sure my modern ethical code varies greatly from that of the Grimms' time). The material is presented very raw, which is interesting in light of having read later editions with their additional polish, but still, difficult to digest.
dark
informative
reflective
slow-paced
I'm trying to read at least one fairy tale per day. There are 120 in this collection, so I should be reading this one for a while. :)
adventurous
dark
funny
hopeful
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A