Reviews

Monstrous Tales: Stories of Strange Creatures and Fearsome Beasts from Around the World by

missbookiverse's review

4.0

Ehrlich gesagt habe ich mir unter dem Titel etwas mehr Tier- und Fabelwesen vorgestellt, aber die Interpretation ist ziemlich weit gefasst. Trotzdem finde ich die Zusammenstellung gelungen, denn die Märchen kommen aus aller Welt (z. B. Syrien, die Türkei, Finnland, Frankreich, Guyana und die Philippinen) und waren mir größtenteils unbekannt. Weniger gelungen ist die Vereinheitlichung der Texte. Da die Märchen alle aus rechtefreien Quellen stammen, unterscheidet sich ihr Stil manchmal sehr, was einerseits ok ist, weil das die Unterschiede zwischen den Ländern und ihren Erzähltraditionen unterstreicht, aber andererseits hätte hier im Lektorat mehr geglättet werden können, so dass nicht in einem Text erläuternde Fußnoten auftauchen, im nächsten Fremdwörter in Klammern erklärt werden und wieder in einem anderen unbekannte Begriffe kommentarlos stehen bleiben. Ein Augenschmaus sind dafür die Illustrationen von Sija Hong. Lasst euch nicht vom Cover verunsichern, es spiegelt leider so gar nicht wider wie schön Hongs Stil und Farbwahl sind.

hamckeon's review

4.0

This anthology has such a wide array of stories from all around the globe.

willowmae's review

adventurous informative lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

Very interesting, loved the different stories
71/100
Breakdown:
After dark 63/100
My lord bag of rice - 75/100
The blood drawing ghost - 71/100
The demon’s daughter- 75/100
The sobbing Pine - 54/100
The Draiglin’ hogney- 50/100
The iron wolf - 54/100
The young man who… - 62/100
Over water, under water 64/100
The man-whale - 90/100
Nya-Nya Bulembu - 85/100
The Mermaids Lake - 69/100
Kivivng- 54/100
The goblin Pony - 53/100
The 3 chests - 50/100
The origin of the… 50/100
Not as they seem 85/100
The princess and the… 98/100
The Buso-Monkey 95/100
The bird of sorrow - 85/100
The Unktomi (spider)… 70/100
The orgre - 73/100
The disobedient daughter… - 80/100
A dragon’ favour - 93/100

Sorry for any spelling mistakes, returned book, and can’t read my own hand writing

amelia_d's review

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

3.5

There are some really great stories in here, but also some that seemed a bit nonsensical to the point that I wonder about the editing/proofreading that was done in the making of this book.
But the book is worth it for the beautiful illustrations and the few interesting stories from several different cultures.

amd_'s review

3.0

much darker than i expected tbh

quiet_reading_time's review

dark lighthearted mysterious relaxing medium-paced

lamusadelils's review

5.0

Me encantaron las historias tan variadas, donde la interpretación de "monstruo" depende mucho del contexto cultural. Siempre soy fan de leer historias de todo el mundo.

Las ilustraciones son magníficas y se adaptan perfecto a los diferentes estilos.

tomnoor's review

4.0

Really fun and great illustrations. Some of the stories really seemed to have no moral. Wish women in fairytales had more to do that be married off. Princess and the ghouls was the exception.

ratthew86's review

4.0

Overall, a really fun read. Really enjoyed experiencing different regions’ takes on monsters. I will say the last section housed my favorite story but also my two least favs (by far).

emvy's review

3.0

The illustrations are absolutely stunning but most of the stories seem to be bad, shallow translations from a very long time ago. No one did any research, context for a lot of the cultural stuff seems to require research but cursory Google searches yield nothing much of the time. I don't have a problem doing some of the lifting while reading and I don't think an author necessarily has to cater their writing to a certain audience. This collection of stories, however, was compiled specifically for a general Western audience and therefore at the very least a glossary or footnotes should have been provided.
One story (the last one in the book) has footnotes that make no sense to providing any insight to the story (which is one of the few that's fleshed out just enough to stand on its own). They feel like notes some university student put in while reading it for a class.
For how gorgeous and thoughtful the illustrations are, someone should have put the absolute slightest bit of effort into edits and extra information.