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3.37 AVERAGE
3.37 AVERAGE
3.5 stars.
This was a fun collection of fairy tale and other classic story retellings, all with a modern and “everyday” take on them. Rather than being full on fairy tales, where magic is a fantastical element, these take on a more magical realist feel, where it’s a fact of life and plays more of an underlying, but still important, role. The horror aspect was mostly a psychological horror, rather than the more physical, jumpscare that I was expecting. But that didn’t make the theme of the retellings any less effective, and may have made some of the stories better than regular horror would have.
It was a very hit and miss collection for me, but many of the stories I wasn’t too crazy about where from stories that I had never read before (or even heard of), so as with any collection, your mileage may vary depending on what of the source material you’ve read. In addition to the fairy tales, there are some traditional kids books, Bible/Christian stories, and ballads adapted as well.
The Daughter Cells was a bit boring, but I still enjoyed this retelling of The Little Mermaid. The dark turn of events at the end make for a happy ending for Ariel that doesn’t involve a prince–at least not in the typical sense.
The Six Boy-Coffins was my favorite of the entire collection. I loved the ending and loved the gender swapping. In general, I kept expecting to have my enjoyment crushed by a trope AND I DIDN’T! I loved it. This would be the one story of the collection I’d go back and reread.
The Velveteen Rabbit has always been a tragic and terrifying kids book. The Rabbit, which reimagines this tale, was just plain terrifying. It was the only story I considered proper horror.
Both the Wind in the Willows and Frog and Toad inspired stories had SO MUCH GASLIGHTING, oh my goodness. There’s so much that the stories themselves might be better off with a trigger warning…. While Mr. Toad is not a character easy to be sympathetic towards in the original story, with this retelling, I most certainly felt sorry for him.
It’s a unique and fun collection of shorts, recommended for those who like the darker sides of fairy tales and traditional tales!
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a free copy to review!
(Cross posted on my blog.)
This was a fun collection of fairy tale and other classic story retellings, all with a modern and “everyday” take on them. Rather than being full on fairy tales, where magic is a fantastical element, these take on a more magical realist feel, where it’s a fact of life and plays more of an underlying, but still important, role. The horror aspect was mostly a psychological horror, rather than the more physical, jumpscare that I was expecting. But that didn’t make the theme of the retellings any less effective, and may have made some of the stories better than regular horror would have.
It was a very hit and miss collection for me, but many of the stories I wasn’t too crazy about where from stories that I had never read before (or even heard of), so as with any collection, your mileage may vary depending on what of the source material you’ve read. In addition to the fairy tales, there are some traditional kids books, Bible/Christian stories, and ballads adapted as well.
The Daughter Cells was a bit boring, but I still enjoyed this retelling of The Little Mermaid. The dark turn of events at the end make for a happy ending for Ariel that doesn’t involve a prince–at least not in the typical sense.
The Six Boy-Coffins was my favorite of the entire collection. I loved the ending and loved the gender swapping. In general, I kept expecting to have my enjoyment crushed by a trope AND I DIDN’T! I loved it. This would be the one story of the collection I’d go back and reread.
The Velveteen Rabbit has always been a tragic and terrifying kids book. The Rabbit, which reimagines this tale, was just plain terrifying. It was the only story I considered proper horror.
Both the Wind in the Willows and Frog and Toad inspired stories had SO MUCH GASLIGHTING, oh my goodness. There’s so much that the stories themselves might be better off with a trigger warning…. While Mr. Toad is not a character easy to be sympathetic towards in the original story, with this retelling, I most certainly felt sorry for him.
It’s a unique and fun collection of shorts, recommended for those who like the darker sides of fairy tales and traditional tales!
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a free copy to review!
(Cross posted on my blog.)
This is like, 2.5 Stars.
I was a long-time reader of The Toast, and I've always loved Ortberg's writing. The "Children's Stories Made Horrific" articles were always so, so wonderful and so chilling (a sharp contrast to a lot of the more humorous writing on The Toast). So I was very excited to finally read this collection, but aside from the Velveteen Rabbit story (just as dark and creepy as I remember) these stories were mostly misses for me. They felt lackluster and didn't have that "oh holy shit!" sense of dread and unease that I expected from tales of everyday horror.
I was a long-time reader of The Toast, and I've always loved Ortberg's writing. The "Children's Stories Made Horrific" articles were always so, so wonderful and so chilling (a sharp contrast to a lot of the more humorous writing on The Toast). So I was very excited to finally read this collection, but aside from the Velveteen Rabbit story (just as dark and creepy as I remember) these stories were mostly misses for me. They felt lackluster and didn't have that "oh holy shit!" sense of dread and unease that I expected from tales of everyday horror.
Looking at how others have reviewed this book, I'm pleasantly surprised at how closely my opinions on The Merry Spinster matches up. I really wanted to like the collection since I'm a sucker for anything fairy tale related, but this collection is very uneven. The two heroes of the collection are definitely "The Rabbit" and "Six Boy Coffins" which both show Orberg's strengths as a writer. However, the book is lead by two of the weaker stories, which I think may turn readers off of finishing the book.
I enjoyed the reimagination of well known and long-told myths. I particularly enjoyed the ones where the thread that became the main theme was gaslighting — it was satisfying (rather than frustrating) to read the words and deeds of someone manipulating, because myths are cautionary tales and grim already.
I didn’t enjoy the degree of piecemeal unveiling the rules and worlds of the stories. That style has never been my strong suit, and for a couple of the stories it was obtuse enough that I never really understood enough to find the story satisfying.
I didn’t enjoy the degree of piecemeal unveiling the rules and worlds of the stories. That style has never been my strong suit, and for a couple of the stories it was obtuse enough that I never really understood enough to find the story satisfying.
This is a well-crafted, creative book of short stories.
I received a copy of this book through the Goodreads giveaway program. This is not the kind of book that I usually read, but I found myself drawn into several of the stories. some of them, however, were not at all to my liking, and I had to move on to the next. All in all, a decent collection of stories.
This book was so disappointing! Look at that beautiful cover. It has a cool (if not overdone) premise to match-twisted retelling of fairytales. Alas, many of the stories in this are just not up to scratch.
This is a relatively short collection and so I'm going to do things a little differently to how I normally review short stories. Instead of going over each story in detail, I'm just going to talk about them generally in comparison to each other and similar things I've read.
So the first story is definitely one of the strongest and unfortunately this led to a large part of my disappointment. 'The Daughter Cells' is kind of like if Lemony Snicket retold The Little Mermaid and all the dark joy that implies. It had a bunch of quotable stuff and used the fairytale to make matter-of-fact, humourous commentary on society. I was hoping all the stories would have this tone and while they kind of do, very few have such a coherent and detailed story to go along with it.
'The Thankless Child' is next (a retelling of Cinderella sort of) and I enjoyed it enough until the ending happened. It was very abrupt and I had no idea what it meant, despite reading it twice. This highlights one of the main issues with many of these stories-they don't appear to have a point. This could be because they are all mixes of several tales (the inspiration for each story is listed at the back which is very cool) and so having not read a lot of the original tales, it may be that stuff gets lost for me. However, I don't believe this is a valid excuse as the story really should stand alone.
'Fear Not' was amusing, yet confusing again and forgettable (although it was inspired by the Bible and so felt like one of the more unique tales). 'The Six Boy Coffins' was finally another story that had a decent plot and a clear ending. This was extremely powerful and again, it used the fairytale element to make a comment about society in a very strong way.
'The Rabbit' follows this and was my favourite story in the whole collection. It is a seriously creepy retelling of The Velveteen Rabbit and I think the simplicity of focusing on one story works in its favour. I will not be forgetting that one anytime soon.
'The Merry Spinster' was a very pointless retelling of Beauty and the Beast with an amusing writing style but it really went absolutely nowhere. I don't even remember 'The Wedding Party' (I finished this book two days ago) and the remaining four stories are all very similar in that they are creepy but again, ultimately pointless or unclear in what they are trying to say.
Overall, I wish I could love this collection more. It has a few really good stories and it shows so much promise in terms of Ortberg's writing style. I just wish it wasn't so hit and miss.
Overall Rating: 2.5
This is a relatively short collection and so I'm going to do things a little differently to how I normally review short stories. Instead of going over each story in detail, I'm just going to talk about them generally in comparison to each other and similar things I've read.
So the first story is definitely one of the strongest and unfortunately this led to a large part of my disappointment. 'The Daughter Cells' is kind of like if Lemony Snicket retold The Little Mermaid and all the dark joy that implies. It had a bunch of quotable stuff and used the fairytale to make matter-of-fact, humourous commentary on society. I was hoping all the stories would have this tone and while they kind of do, very few have such a coherent and detailed story to go along with it.
'The Thankless Child' is next (a retelling of Cinderella sort of) and I enjoyed it enough until the ending happened. It was very abrupt and I had no idea what it meant, despite reading it twice. This highlights one of the main issues with many of these stories-they don't appear to have a point. This could be because they are all mixes of several tales (the inspiration for each story is listed at the back which is very cool) and so having not read a lot of the original tales, it may be that stuff gets lost for me. However, I don't believe this is a valid excuse as the story really should stand alone.
'Fear Not' was amusing, yet confusing again and forgettable (although it was inspired by the Bible and so felt like one of the more unique tales). 'The Six Boy Coffins' was finally another story that had a decent plot and a clear ending. This was extremely powerful and again, it used the fairytale element to make a comment about society in a very strong way.
'The Rabbit' follows this and was my favourite story in the whole collection. It is a seriously creepy retelling of The Velveteen Rabbit and I think the simplicity of focusing on one story works in its favour. I will not be forgetting that one anytime soon.
'The Merry Spinster' was a very pointless retelling of Beauty and the Beast with an amusing writing style but it really went absolutely nowhere. I don't even remember 'The Wedding Party' (I finished this book two days ago) and the remaining four stories are all very similar in that they are creepy but again, ultimately pointless or unclear in what they are trying to say.
Overall, I wish I could love this collection more. It has a few really good stories and it shows so much promise in terms of Ortberg's writing style. I just wish it wasn't so hit and miss.
Overall Rating: 2.5
This is a collection of retold fairy tales. Well, most of them are fairy tales, there is one that is written from an angel's perspective about stories that occurred in the Bible (which, to some, I suppose, are classified as fairy tales as well). A lot of descriptions state that these are "darker" versions of the fairy tales but, seriously, do the original fairy tales really NEED to get darker? I feel like that statement suggests that one did not truly sit with the darkness that was already present in the originals.
There is, however, something subversive about these retellings, and perhaps THAT is what is meant by "darker." Without giving anything away, some of these fairy tales go along pretty much the way the original tale does, with just a small twist or so. However, it's these small minor twists that turn some fundamental dynamic that was present in the original tales upside down, and these dynamics are SO fundamental and taken for granted to the extent that the shocker comes from that. The most prevalent twist is that the character that was supposed to play a passive role (martyr, grateful, etc.) decided to... not. And that was what made me actually chuckle at the somber endings.
There is, however, something subversive about these retellings, and perhaps THAT is what is meant by "darker." Without giving anything away, some of these fairy tales go along pretty much the way the original tale does, with just a small twist or so. However, it's these small minor twists that turn some fundamental dynamic that was present in the original tales upside down, and these dynamics are SO fundamental and taken for granted to the extent that the shocker comes from that. The most prevalent twist is that the character that was supposed to play a passive role (martyr, grateful, etc.) decided to... not. And that was what made me actually chuckle at the somber endings.
Eh. I’m usually a sucker for fairy tale retellings, but some of the short stories didn’t do it for me. Despite how much I adore the author.