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A review by emmacatereads
Black Thorn, White Rose by Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling
4.0
At first glance yet another collection of edgy fairy tale retellings, but these were far more unique and consistently high-quality than what I've read in the past. It certainly helps that this version contains works by some true heavyweights in the fantasy genre: Jane Yolen, Patricia C. Wrede, and Peter Straub to name a few. The tales they choose to focus on, while occasionally veering towards the traditional (a startling amount of takes on Sleeping beauty), also spread into unfamiliar territory: forgotten English folklore like Tattercoats, tales from the French Blue Fairy book, and little known Grimm stories such as The Juniper Tree.
My favorites were, in no particular order: The Sawing Boys, a hilarious take on a fairy tale I'd never heard before (The Breman Town Musicians) set in the 1920's American South, Godson by Roger Delaney, a clever take on The Godfather Death fairy tale from the Grimm cannon in which Death really likes chess and football and manipulating people to join the medical field, Tattercoats by Midair Snyder, which turns a Cinderella-like story into a tender second-chance romance between a long-married husband and wife, and Sweet Bruising Skin by Storm Constantine which transforms the Princess and the Pea fairytale into a frighting and fascinating story of dark magic and bonding between powerful, manipulative women.
My favorites were, in no particular order: The Sawing Boys, a hilarious take on a fairy tale I'd never heard before (The Breman Town Musicians) set in the 1920's American South, Godson by Roger Delaney, a clever take on The Godfather Death fairy tale from the Grimm cannon in which Death really likes chess and football and manipulating people to join the medical field, Tattercoats by Midair Snyder, which turns a Cinderella-like story into a tender second-chance romance between a long-married husband and wife, and Sweet Bruising Skin by Storm Constantine which transforms the Princess and the Pea fairytale into a frighting and fascinating story of dark magic and bonding between powerful, manipulative women.