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3.37 AVERAGE
3.37 AVERAGE
The first story was great but its greatness set me up for disappointment. Many of these stories I just didn't get. And it wasn't as scary as I was hoping it would be. Not a bad read though.
Very strange and very interesting. A retelling of several fairytales.
adventurous
dark
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Mallory Ortberg does an expert job at taking fairy tales and other familiar childhood stories and making them a little twisted and dark. The stories leave you feeling slightly unsettled.
I absolutely loved - and sort of feared - the children's stories retold as horror when The Toast was a (beloved, shining) thing, and I hoped this collection would be more and the same. It wasn't, but there was still a lot to appreciate here.
Some of my favorites from The Toast were here, such as the Velveteen Rabbit, which is so perfectly retold as horror. The Frog and Toad/fisherman story at the end - I only remember it as Frog and Toad story, but maybe my memory is wrong and the mashup was always there. Also the Wind in the Willows story - again, perfectly nightmarish and horrific. And the Seven Swans story - wow. It takes everything classic fairy tale conventions secretly know and makes them clear, really, and the horror is just right there. (Missing from my Toast-based memories is a retelling of Winnie the Pooh that was so deeply upsetting to me that I will never quite forget it, but it also has taken on a nightmare quality where it's kind of phantasmagoric, and I don't know whether I want to read it again and now I suppose I don't have to decide!)
I recognize this was not necessarily intended as a straightforward published collection of that particular Toast subsection, though, and I don't really mean to review it as such. It's just that that's where my personal assumptions about this book came from.
Anyway. As a collection, this is variable for me. Some of the stories work better for me than others. Some depend upon a literary knowledge I don't quite possess, especially when it comes to mythology and the Bible - I think of Daniel Ortberg's knowledge of those things and his referencing of them as deep dive level stuff, though maybe they aren't- it's just that my knowledge of, say, Persephone, ends at vague ideas about pomegranates, the Underworld, seasons I think? Zeus? You know? I might even be talking about Pandora (she had a box!) and not realizing, so, that's the issue there. So some of these went a bit over my head, though I still appreciated things about them. I just love this concept in general because of the horror sitting right on the surface of both fairy tales and our cultural notions about politeness (and my god the gaslighting in these stories), relationships, gender, and what stories, religion, and morals should look like...
If you like your fairy tale retellings with the horror laid bare in an intellectual, feminist, literary way, this is the collection for you. I wish there were more of it, but I liked it.
Some of my favorites from The Toast were here, such as the Velveteen Rabbit, which is so perfectly retold as horror. The Frog and Toad/fisherman story at the end - I only remember it as Frog and Toad story, but maybe my memory is wrong and the mashup was always there. Also the Wind in the Willows story - again, perfectly nightmarish and horrific. And the Seven Swans story - wow. It takes everything classic fairy tale conventions secretly know and makes them clear, really, and the horror is just right there. (Missing from my Toast-based memories is a retelling of Winnie the Pooh that was so deeply upsetting to me that I will never quite forget it, but it also has taken on a nightmare quality where it's kind of phantasmagoric, and I don't know whether I want to read it again and now I suppose I don't have to decide!)
I recognize this was not necessarily intended as a straightforward published collection of that particular Toast subsection, though, and I don't really mean to review it as such. It's just that that's where my personal assumptions about this book came from.
Anyway. As a collection, this is variable for me. Some of the stories work better for me than others. Some depend upon a literary knowledge I don't quite possess, especially when it comes to mythology and the Bible - I think of Daniel Ortberg's knowledge of those things and his referencing of them as deep dive level stuff, though maybe they aren't- it's just that my knowledge of, say, Persephone, ends at vague ideas about pomegranates, the Underworld, seasons I think? Zeus? You know? I might even be talking about Pandora (she had a box!) and not realizing, so, that's the issue there. So some of these went a bit over my head, though I still appreciated things about them. I just love this concept in general because of the horror sitting right on the surface of both fairy tales and our cultural notions about politeness (and my god the gaslighting in these stories), relationships, gender, and what stories, religion, and morals should look like...
If you like your fairy tale retellings with the horror laid bare in an intellectual, feminist, literary way, this is the collection for you. I wish there were more of it, but I liked it.
Mostly pretty good. Loved the refreshingly realistic (cynical) takes on power dynamics and human character. Some stories were a little too abstract and experimental for me to read through, but the others were very engaging.
Some of the stories are suitably creepy but I mostly just found them depressing. Perhaps this is wrong thing for me to read during the pandemic. Content warning for emotionally abusive relationships.
Overall a good story collection. A little inconsistent, but even the less stellar stories were interesting and had some nice twists on the original stories. A quick read as well, perfect for those days when reading time is interrupted.
An unsettling collection of reimagined fairy and folk tales.