This is one of what I gather to be a whole host of “alternative fairy tale” short story collections. It has sat on my shelf for years, forlornly waiting to be read. I recently started picking at it, a story at a time, while reading other things. It’s solidly average-to-decent, but I actually liked it more than I thought I would.
As with most genre short story anthologies, the entries in this book all revolve around the common theme of turning a classic fairy tale on its head. The stories approach this from a number of angles, resulting in everything from alternative viewpoints to entire transplants of the setting; I only knew that some of them were related to a classic tale because they were in this book to begin with. Even so, each tale does what it sets out to do, as the settings are suitably evocative and the morals (altered and revised though some may be) are crystal clear by the end of each.
This collection suffers from the hallmark lack of consistency that plagues most short story collections, but I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of duds in this one. Granted, only one or two stories struck me enough that I’m still thinking about them, but each and every one of them were fun to read. I liked some less than others, but there were none I outright disliked, which is rare in a collection like this.
Turns out, this collection is perfect for the use I had for it: fun, escapist, bite-sized reads. Most of the tales presented have a sensual, feminist bent, but there really is something for everyone, with altered fairy tales of all different moods and directions. I’m not exactly chomping at the bit for another in this series, but I will definitely pick one up once I’m in the mood for it again, and would definitely recommend this one to those who are fans of the adult fairy tale.
As with most genre short story anthologies, the entries in this book all revolve around the common theme of turning a classic fairy tale on its head. The stories approach this from a number of angles, resulting in everything from alternative viewpoints to entire transplants of the setting; I only knew that some of them were related to a classic tale because they were in this book to begin with. Even so, each tale does what it sets out to do, as the settings are suitably evocative and the morals (altered and revised though some may be) are crystal clear by the end of each.
This collection suffers from the hallmark lack of consistency that plagues most short story collections, but I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of duds in this one. Granted, only one or two stories struck me enough that I’m still thinking about them, but each and every one of them were fun to read. I liked some less than others, but there were none I outright disliked, which is rare in a collection like this.
Turns out, this collection is perfect for the use I had for it: fun, escapist, bite-sized reads. Most of the tales presented have a sensual, feminist bent, but there really is something for everyone, with altered fairy tales of all different moods and directions. I’m not exactly chomping at the bit for another in this series, but I will definitely pick one up once I’m in the mood for it again, and would definitely recommend this one to those who are fans of the adult fairy tale.
Verdict: 3 out of 5
No comments:
Post a Comment