Reviews

The Halcyon Fairy Book by T. Kingfisher

retrogirl20's review against another edition

lighthearted reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

I love T. Kingfisher’s commentary and I love this format of writing. Super fun, quick and witty!

dibiz116's review

4.0

The initial annotated old fairy tales are hard to get through. Even with the authors fairly funny commentary old fairy tales are just... not good. I can see how this worked as blog posts (as they were originally published) but collected into a book it was not a good reading experience. 2 stars for this section.

HOWEVER the original short stories at the end were SO FREAKING GOOD. Honestly I wish I could give them more than 5 stars. The snow white retelling especially was just... *chefs kiss*. I literally both laughed out loud and cried.

My suggestion is to read the heck out of this - if you find yourself struggling with the annotated portion just skip that part.

heathersbike's review against another edition

5.0

This was great. I'm reading (very, very slowly reading) a collection of Hans Christian Anderson and I bet it would go a lot better with some of Ms. Vernon's amazing commentary. So many fairy tales. It makes me wonder how some of them get into our collective and some of them said away. More, please.

mint_phonon's review

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot

3.5

wetdryvac's review against another edition

5.0

A series of excellent shorts.

pinkbasil's review against another edition

emotional funny medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

misssusan's review against another edition

4.0

technically speaking i did not read this book! i did however read toad words and other stories as well as the annotated fairytales series ursula vernon put up in her blog which covers like 98% of the content so i feel like i should get the credit anyways

we all know that vernon's an excellent short story writer but now we also know she is a hilarious commentator on fairytales! definitely a worthwhile way to spend an afternoon

4 stars

sjgochenour's review against another edition

5.0

I teared up several times. This is like a long gulp of something unreasonably delicious.

I LOVE THE BOARS

roseparis's review against another edition

adventurous funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Lesser known fairy tales with commentary from the author, some hilarious, some slightly redundant- I doubt anyone reading this is unaware that fairy tales can be nonsensical and problematic at times. Entertaining read.

displacedcactus's review

funny informative lighthearted

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

Ok if I had known this was a collection of blog posts where Kingfisher annotated some really weird classic fairy tales, I would have bought it a lot sooner. I loved this so freakin' much. Definitely a must-read for anyone who enjoys fairy tales but also has an occasional "wait a minute, WHAT?" reaction to some of the weirder elements.

The author's short story collection Toad Words is also included, so if you haven't already bought/read that one, it's a great two-for-one deal. I do already own Toad Words but I don't regret having purchased this as well.