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alyram4's review against another edition
5.0
4.5/5 stars!
To be honest, I sort of expected to be let down by this book...
But I wasn't. I loved it. I enjoyed practically every story in here.
So this book is split into 2 sections: The Tales Retold and The Original Tales. The order of the retelling and its respective inspiration are both in order, so it's fairy easy to find the story you're looking for. What I did for this was use colored page flags and mark each of the pairs together. I would read the original story (or poem) first, then I'd flip over to the retelling. I found this to be the most productive way to read this book, and it honestly lets you see the differences and similarities between the pair! I didn't feel disappointed in any of the 13 stories, although there were a few times where I questioned a certain characteristic or phrase. Some stories also read a bit slower than I would have liked, but they all had a great pay-off. I believe that all of those involved did the original works justice. As a horror fan, I can definitely appreciate what each of the authors brought to the table. They all did a magnificent job of holding true to the original source material while putting their own spin into it.
ARC provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
To be honest, I sort of expected to be let down by this book...
But I wasn't. I loved it. I enjoyed practically every story in here.
So this book is split into 2 sections: The Tales Retold and The Original Tales. The order of the retelling and its respective inspiration are both in order, so it's fairy easy to find the story you're looking for. What I did for this was use colored page flags and mark each of the pairs together. I would read the original story (or poem) first, then I'd flip over to the retelling. I found this to be the most productive way to read this book, and it honestly lets you see the differences and similarities between the pair! I didn't feel disappointed in any of the 13 stories, although there were a few times where I questioned a certain characteristic or phrase. Some stories also read a bit slower than I would have liked, but they all had a great pay-off. I believe that all of those involved did the original works justice. As a horror fan, I can definitely appreciate what each of the authors brought to the table. They all did a magnificent job of holding true to the original source material while putting their own spin into it.
ARC provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
bravelittleghost's review against another edition
4.0
I love Edgar Allan Poe, so when I first heard about this collection of stories I was very excited. The first half of the book is Poe reimaginings and the second half contains the original tales. I thouroughly enjoyed this collection and was definitely surprised by some of the plot twists.
trin_ney18's review against another edition
4.0
4/5 Stars
It's very hard for me not to like a short story collection. There's always going to be stories and authors that I find myself enjoying and I'm a glass-half-full kind of person. If I like even a small amount of the stories found here then it's going to get a good rating from me.
What I really liked about this was that they were retellings or reimaginings of Poe's stories. I remember going through a huge Poe phase in middle school so this was so much fun to read. They were also mostly horror and dark stories which I just love.
I also really loved how diverse the authors were and the characters they created.
Here are some of my favorite stories from the collection (this isn't to say that I didn't like the others, they were all amazing and I enjoyed them very much):
Night-Tide by Tessa Gratton
The Glittering Death by Caleb Roehrig
A Drop of Stolen Ink by Emily Lloyd-Jones
Red by Hillary Monahan
Hop-Frog by Edgar Allen Poe
The Oval Portrait by Edgar Allen Poe
It's very hard for me not to like a short story collection. There's always going to be stories and authors that I find myself enjoying and I'm a glass-half-full kind of person. If I like even a small amount of the stories found here then it's going to get a good rating from me.
What I really liked about this was that they were retellings or reimaginings of Poe's stories. I remember going through a huge Poe phase in middle school so this was so much fun to read. They were also mostly horror and dark stories which I just love.
I also really loved how diverse the authors were and the characters they created.
Here are some of my favorite stories from the collection (this isn't to say that I didn't like the others, they were all amazing and I enjoyed them very much):
Night-Tide by Tessa Gratton
The Glittering Death by Caleb Roehrig
A Drop of Stolen Ink by Emily Lloyd-Jones
Red by Hillary Monahan
Hop-Frog by Edgar Allen Poe
The Oval Portrait by Edgar Allen Poe
andreaajasmine's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.75
auntsarah's review against another edition
Not in the mood for short stories, I would come back to this in the future though
agirlsnightbookbash's review against another edition
4.0
Wonderful collection of classic poems and stories from Edgar Allan Poe paired with reimaginations of those stories. With the exception of "The Raven" and "The Cask of Amontillado," I had never read any Poe before. I cannot claim to be a huge fan so maybe this isn't a book for the die-hard Poe fan. I cannot make that assessment.
I can say that of the 13 redo's none of them were bad. My favorites of the retellings were Lamar Giles variation of "The Oval Portrait" and Stephanie Keuhn's version of "The Tell-Tale Heart." I adore Amanda Lovelace but the "Raven" retelling was a bit lacking. All in all it was a good set of stories though.
I can say that of the 13 redo's none of them were bad. My favorites of the retellings were Lamar Giles variation of "The Oval Portrait" and Stephanie Keuhn's version of "The Tell-Tale Heart." I adore Amanda Lovelace but the "Raven" retelling was a bit lacking. All in all it was a good set of stories though.
lordcheez's review against another edition
4.0
Some are better than others but overall solid retelling.
braynard's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
One major thing to note is that these are specifically Young Adult retellings. All of the authors featured are Young Adult authors and they are written in a Young Adult style. There is a lot focus on relationships, diverse characters, and teenaged characters. None of this is necessarily bad (in fact, I think retelling old literature from a diverse perspective can add a whole new element to a wonderful story). But you can tell it’s written with teenagers in mind, and that means the quality can fluctuate a lot.
Honestly, I think the best stories are the ones that stick closest to Poe’s original styles. The one’s that are murky and eerie, with unclear details and the feeling that the narrator cannot be trusted. These often stick to the heart of what makes Poe so great—it’s about the emotions, the turmoil of the characters, and not why the creepy thing is happening. Among the best ones are “It’s Carnival!” (a retelling of “The Cask of Amontillado”), “Night-Tide” (a retelling of “Annabel Lee”), and “Lygia” (a retelling of “Ligeia”). They all have the vibe of a classic Poe story while making their own mark.
Vice versa, the weaker stories are ones that try too hard to explain how the strange thing is occurring. For example, “The Glittering Death” is a rewrite of “The Pit and Pendulum”. One of the great aspects of Poe’s story is how insane the tortures are, how impossible they would be for humans to replicate. Yes, he makes the Inquisition the perpetrators, but they are treated more as a vague, inhuman force than a real enemy. The mythic impossible quality of the punishment is part of what makes the story so intense. In “The Glittering Death”, however, the perpetrator is a serial killer who kidnaps a girl, locks her in a cage, and tortures her while spouting religious sayings. Its more Criminal Minds than Edgar Allan Poe. The torture is awful, but does not have that same impossible, inescapable quality that the original had. It completely removes the vague supernatural elements.
Other stories go the exact opposite direction. Rather than remove the surreal details, they go full fantasy/sci-fi to explain them. “The Fall of the Bank of Usher” (guess which story this is retelling) takes the sickly Usher siblings and makes them…futuristic cyber thieves working to take down an AI fungus? “A Drop of Stolen Ink” and “The Murders in the Rue Apartelle, Boracay” both take a Dupin mystery and turn into a sci-fi/fantasy adventure. Which is completely unnecessary since the Dupin mysteries are some of the only Poe stories which are 100% set in reality.
Which does not mean that the fully modernized stories are all bad. “The Oval Filter” takes the enchanting portrait from the original story and turns into the social media profile of a murdered girl. And rather than just being a story about a young dying because of her husband’s obsession, it is about her murder being avenged. Now, it could arguably fall into the stereotype of a woman being ‘fridged’ (horrifically murdered to advance a man’s plot line), but it still did something interesting with the original idea. Rather than remove the surreal aspects or completely change an established plot, the author took a vague idea Poe wrote about and expanded it to work in a modern story. And, notably, it never tried to explain how the dead girl’s social media kept working.
It’s not a bad collection. It was trying something new for a new audience, and I appreciate that they put the original stories in the back so readers can compare the retellings. That said, I’m not keeping it. I feel no need to reread it and I don’t think I’ll be recommending it all that often. If you like Poe, you could read it, but don’t expect perfection.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/10
j3mm4's review against another edition
dark
funny
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Some of these read more generically YA than others; the focus on adapting into and taking inspiration for stories which focus on the perspectives of lesbians and people of color does genuinely go super hard and make for very engaging and artfully crafted stories; the inclusion of the inspiring works in the back is solid, but I think inserting them in closer proximity to the stories they inspired would make for a better entrée into Poe's work for the uninitiated. All in all, definitely a worthwhile read!