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A review by samsegal3
Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales by Jacob Grimm
1.0
I feel a bit bad that this book took me so long to read. In fact, it's a DNF.
Like most people, I was drawn to these stories upon hearing that our beloved movies and cartoons growing up were based off of them. (It feels a bit odd giving them credit for /all/ of these tales though, since much of the time it was them retelling or including tales by other people.) It was intriguing to read the 'source', or as close to it as possible, about the original tales. I had come across a few in middle school, and loved the drastic difference between what I thought was the story and what was [almost] actually the story. (Again, they retold some things and reworked some things, so it's still not 100% accurate to the actual original tales.)
Upon hearing about a collection of all their stories, I was eager to jump on it. Curious to read the classics of those I had missed, and of new ones I never knew about.
I had started this book reading from start to finish, but found myself quickly growing bored. The writing style was more archaic than I was used to, which dragged things a bit, and I found that the stories that were lesser known were also more boring to me. Not too many things happened in these tales, and the sexism was a bit annoying at times. (I get it, product of their time, but still. Also, funny how Snow White was seven in their story, and 14 in Disney's. Both of them got married at their respective ages btw. xD) Quite a few were mostly repetitive, which didn't help. And after a while, the same morals over and over was tiring. (And many were just waiting around for magic or luck to happen, and not take any action yourself.) I found a few of the stories to jump around a lot in plot as well, like random things would come up and not be addressed. Some endings were inconclusive. Etc. I can't say for certain for its time if it was well written, but I can say that for now, it reads as weak to me.
That's not to say they were all bad, but it was a scarce few in a collection of hundreds.
Since life is too short for me, I decided to jump around, pick out the ones I'd find most interesting, and then finally put this book to rest and add it to my "donate to library" pile.
If you're into old literature and stories, especially fairy tales, you'd probably have gotten more out of this than I did. If you're just looking for the 'Disney' tales themselves, they're all public domain and you can certainly find them online for free to save yourself some money. (Or I guess check out your local library? xD)
I'm uncertain if I'd recommend reading this to children, I guess it depends on the age. I read 'Cinderella' in middle school though, and my classmates and I managed through it fine. Depends on the person, though, I'm sure. Just be mindful and check the stories out before you do, if anything.
Like most people, I was drawn to these stories upon hearing that our beloved movies and cartoons growing up were based off of them. (It feels a bit odd giving them credit for /all/ of these tales though, since much of the time it was them retelling or including tales by other people.) It was intriguing to read the 'source', or as close to it as possible, about the original tales. I had come across a few in middle school, and loved the drastic difference between what I thought was the story and what was [almost] actually the story. (Again, they retold some things and reworked some things, so it's still not 100% accurate to the actual original tales.)
Upon hearing about a collection of all their stories, I was eager to jump on it. Curious to read the classics of those I had missed, and of new ones I never knew about.
I had started this book reading from start to finish, but found myself quickly growing bored. The writing style was more archaic than I was used to, which dragged things a bit, and I found that the stories that were lesser known were also more boring to me. Not too many things happened in these tales, and the sexism was a bit annoying at times. (I get it, product of their time, but still. Also, funny how Snow White was seven in their story, and 14 in Disney's. Both of them got married at their respective ages btw. xD) Quite a few were mostly repetitive, which didn't help. And after a while, the same morals over and over was tiring. (And many were just waiting around for magic or luck to happen, and not take any action yourself.) I found a few of the stories to jump around a lot in plot as well, like random things would come up and not be addressed. Some endings were inconclusive. Etc. I can't say for certain for its time if it was well written, but I can say that for now, it reads as weak to me.
That's not to say they were all bad, but it was a scarce few in a collection of hundreds.
Since life is too short for me, I decided to jump around, pick out the ones I'd find most interesting, and then finally put this book to rest and add it to my "donate to library" pile.
If you're into old literature and stories, especially fairy tales, you'd probably have gotten more out of this than I did. If you're just looking for the 'Disney' tales themselves, they're all public domain and you can certainly find them online for free to save yourself some money. (Or I guess check out your local library? xD)
I'm uncertain if I'd recommend reading this to children, I guess it depends on the age. I read 'Cinderella' in middle school though, and my classmates and I managed through it fine. Depends on the person, though, I'm sure. Just be mindful and check the stories out before you do, if anything.