Scan barcode
A review by smart_girls_love_trashy_books
Snow White, Blood Red by Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling
2.0
~POTENTIAL SPOILERS~
Why do I keep gravitating to short story collections of adult fairy-tale retellings as of late? They're like the only things I can seem to finish. Anyway, this was something I've been wanting to read for a long while, even longer than things like Red as Blood or The Bloody Chamber(why do all these collections mention blood?) It's better when there's multiple authors to all add their own unique styles to the book so I was excited to read it, but unfortunately it fell very flat for me.
When I first read the introduction, I got super excited because of the declaration adults should not be ashamed of fantasy and fairy-tales and take them back, to make them dark how they were, and the importance of the original fairy-tales on our culture. I agreed with all that and adult fairy-tales are my jam, but whoever collected these tales should've reminded the authors that just because something is made for adults does not mean it should be dull and dry. Sadly, that's the best way to describe the vast majority of the stories here for me.
Usually when I review a collection like this, I go through each story individually and how I'd rate it and whatnot, but I'm not going to do that here purely because almost every story here can be summarized the same way; they all had good ideas and I could see what they were going for, but their executions were too dry and in some cases, too weird. Most seemed too weird for the sake of being weird, like why was Thumbelina a genetically-modified human? How the heck did Jack manage to impregnate a giant? What was up with the comedic Italian Rapunzel version? Why would you use your own novel characters in a collection meant to appeal to a wider audience?
The worst in my opinion was Puss. I already consider Puss in Boots to be one of my least-favorite fairy-tales so any retellings have to try their absolute hardest to win me over and this flopped so hard with me. It was the longest in the collection, needlessly long, the character's twist was very bizarre, and the style was too deattatched for me to properly connect to it. Maybe in other hands, in another collection, this would've been decent, but not here. I also disliked the retellings of The Frog Prince and The Snow Queen due to confusing twists and a too-dry tone.
However, there were still some standouts that made me glad I did pick this up to read. The first story was not a retelling but rather more inspired by multiple sources and I thought it was very well-done in that regard. Dry, yes, but no less hauntingly beautiful. The two retellings of Little Red Riding Hood I thought were very good but you can't go wrong with those retellings, everyone just nails them. I did prefer Little Red a tad more over I Shall Do the Mischief in the Wood purely due to the historical thirties period, plus I think the characters were more concise. Most people seemed to dislike The Root of the Matter since it didn't stray much from the original Rapunzel story, but the way it was crafted I enjoyed, with Gothel and the Prince having their own POVs as well.
A Sound Like Angels Singing was pretty haunting in regards to its ending, same with Breadcrumbs and Stones, though I felt they could've used some more 'oomph'? Like they were good but something about their meandering tones made the twist endings too much of a chore to get to.
The two I loved the most were The Springfield Swans and Troll Bridge. The former was just how I like my retellings; clever spins on the original in fresh way. I loved the Southern style and baseball focus, with an older sister this time, and how despite it being set in the modern day it did not suspend my disbelief about how these things are happening. The latter I figured I'd like the moment I knew Neil Gaiman wrote it, and I was right. A good yet sad twist about the way life goes, written in his usual dark style, what more could I ask for?
I also appreciated the little introductions at the start of each story just to give us a run-down on what it is and who wrote it, it helped set the mood in a weird way.
Overall though, I have to give this a very low score due to the dull nature of these stories and my boredom while reading. When I hear about 'fairy-tales for adults' I think of gratuitous violence with blood everywhere and dark eroticism, which I thought would be present here, but I was sorely disappointed by the dry tones and flat deliveries present in these stories. Half the time I was asking myself where the part that made it 18+ came in. However, because this is just one collection and there's multiple ones with different authors, despite my displeasure with this one I'm still going to look into the remaining ones since there's always the chance those additions will be much better.
Why do I keep gravitating to short story collections of adult fairy-tale retellings as of late? They're like the only things I can seem to finish. Anyway, this was something I've been wanting to read for a long while, even longer than things like Red as Blood or The Bloody Chamber(why do all these collections mention blood?) It's better when there's multiple authors to all add their own unique styles to the book so I was excited to read it, but unfortunately it fell very flat for me.
When I first read the introduction, I got super excited because of the declaration adults should not be ashamed of fantasy and fairy-tales and take them back, to make them dark how they were, and the importance of the original fairy-tales on our culture. I agreed with all that and adult fairy-tales are my jam, but whoever collected these tales should've reminded the authors that just because something is made for adults does not mean it should be dull and dry. Sadly, that's the best way to describe the vast majority of the stories here for me.
Usually when I review a collection like this, I go through each story individually and how I'd rate it and whatnot, but I'm not going to do that here purely because almost every story here can be summarized the same way; they all had good ideas and I could see what they were going for, but their executions were too dry and in some cases, too weird. Most seemed too weird for the sake of being weird, like why was Thumbelina a genetically-modified human? How the heck did Jack manage to impregnate a giant? What was up with the comedic Italian Rapunzel version? Why would you use your own novel characters in a collection meant to appeal to a wider audience?
The worst in my opinion was Puss. I already consider Puss in Boots to be one of my least-favorite fairy-tales so any retellings have to try their absolute hardest to win me over and this flopped so hard with me. It was the longest in the collection, needlessly long, the character's twist was very bizarre, and the style was too deattatched for me to properly connect to it. Maybe in other hands, in another collection, this would've been decent, but not here. I also disliked the retellings of The Frog Prince and The Snow Queen due to confusing twists and a too-dry tone.
However, there were still some standouts that made me glad I did pick this up to read. The first story was not a retelling but rather more inspired by multiple sources and I thought it was very well-done in that regard. Dry, yes, but no less hauntingly beautiful. The two retellings of Little Red Riding Hood I thought were very good but you can't go wrong with those retellings, everyone just nails them. I did prefer Little Red a tad more over I Shall Do the Mischief in the Wood purely due to the historical thirties period, plus I think the characters were more concise. Most people seemed to dislike The Root of the Matter since it didn't stray much from the original Rapunzel story, but the way it was crafted I enjoyed, with Gothel and the Prince having their own POVs as well.
A Sound Like Angels Singing was pretty haunting in regards to its ending, same with Breadcrumbs and Stones, though I felt they could've used some more 'oomph'? Like they were good but something about their meandering tones made the twist endings too much of a chore to get to.
The two I loved the most were The Springfield Swans and Troll Bridge. The former was just how I like my retellings; clever spins on the original in fresh way. I loved the Southern style and baseball focus, with an older sister this time, and how despite it being set in the modern day it did not suspend my disbelief about how these things are happening. The latter I figured I'd like the moment I knew Neil Gaiman wrote it, and I was right. A good yet sad twist about the way life goes, written in his usual dark style, what more could I ask for?
I also appreciated the little introductions at the start of each story just to give us a run-down on what it is and who wrote it, it helped set the mood in a weird way.
Overall though, I have to give this a very low score due to the dull nature of these stories and my boredom while reading. When I hear about 'fairy-tales for adults' I think of gratuitous violence with blood everywhere and dark eroticism, which I thought would be present here, but I was sorely disappointed by the dry tones and flat deliveries present in these stories. Half the time I was asking myself where the part that made it 18+ came in. However, because this is just one collection and there's multiple ones with different authors, despite my displeasure with this one I'm still going to look into the remaining ones since there's always the chance those additions will be much better.