Reviews

Tangleweed and Brine by Deirdre Sullivan

cisforcookie88's review

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1.0

Nothing in this anthology grabbed me. I found it hard to read the stories and found that I much preferred the original stories

circlesofflame's review against another edition

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3.0

Dark, feminist fairytale retellings? Sounds like a perfect recipe to me. So, why didn't I love this? The women in these tales aren't as empowered as I would have imagined. They were focused on the negative opinions of others and took these on, resulting in them feeling pretty rubbish about themselves... and this is never challenged. The whole collection feels negative, rather than overly dark. The writing is wonderfully lyrical, if just a little abrupt in tone, littered with short, clipped sentences.

Although I didn't enjoy these tales as much as I hoped, I would like to see how Sullivan's lyrical writing style would translate to longer works.

goddess_of_gore_vix's review

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4.0

I loved this book and yes it's a 4.5 star
Listened to the audio narrated by Aoife McMahon.
Some stories were very short and we're read like poetry whereas some were longer and gripped me. My favourites were Blackbeard (I do not know the original fairy tale) and
The stories definitely got darker as the book goes on or I simply got pulled in as the book went on who knows. These would definitely be good for someone who likes to read a short story every day since they would take about 20 mins each.

fantasyfairy's review

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challenging dark fast-paced

3.0

laurenk_20's review against another edition

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3.0

A bit disappointed with this. Some stories were better than others, some were just very confusing. The rhythm of the writing was very broken and it just felt a bit laboured.

limonik's review

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2.0

It took me ages, but I finally finished Tangleweed and Brine by Deirdre Sullivan. I did not like this book that much. I find bits of it pretentious and forced. I think the idea behind it was great, but the outcome is mediocre hence why it took me ages to finish this book.

lydiahephzibah's review

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DNF. the writing style is awkward and jilted and the stories just aren't interesting to me.

leslie_ann_thornton's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

avsfan08's review

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4.0

A feminist re-telling of classic fairy tales. Some are quite dark - definitely no Disney versions here.

ishouldreadthat's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0