So I’m the third series before I finish my fractured fairytale TBR pile. I was a big fan of Holub and Williams’ Goddess Girls series so they take the school AU to the fairytale universe. That trope is very popular, so let’s see how they rank up.

1. Goldilocks Break In: This book is the first one that really explores the more morally ambiguous villain. In this case, Goldilocks whose pickpocketing habit and her fairytale places her as the role of a villain. Not that anyone treats her too badly, she just doesn’t have any friends. So when the evil Steps invite her to join E.V.I.L. society she’s mightly tempted. Of course, in a series dedicated to lower schoolers, Goldi doesn’t fall for their ruse for long as she decides to become an infiltraitor and prove she’s really a hero. I enjoyed the message that your tale doesn’t define you and just because you’re not a goody good doesn’t make you a bad person.
2. Rapunzel Cuts Loose: I’ll admit she gets one of the top 3 spots because she was my favorite when I was younger with her goth aesthetic. Besides that, her story has a cute love triangle where she sees the importance of friendship over seemingly perfect princes and helpful tips for dealing with bad bargains.
3. Snow White Lucks Out: Williams/Holub give Snow a distinct personality from all other Snow interpretations by focusing on her superstitious lucky charms. Something that gives her some control over a world where her Wicked stepmother manages to cut her down with her passive-aggressive comments. Snow is also dealing with a doubtful friend as her BFF suspect that she is in league with E.V.I.L.! What can I say, I love the internal frendship drama and Williams/Holub do a great job of balancing Snow’s difficulties standing up for herself and building up confidence to confront her friend’s wrong suspicions and face off against her stepmother, letting go of her desire to finally gain her approval.
4. Red Riding Hood Gets Lost: Red is thrilled to finally put her dramatic talent onstage. But at her first audition she not only freezes up but she faints. Deciding she can’t face that failure again, she puts all her efforts to fighting against E.V.I.L. but her crush and possibly enemy, Wolfgang keeps pushing her to try again. Can she really trust the wolf? I love it when there is double crossing intrigue. Even at a lower-school level, it’s always exciting especially as Holub/Williams combines it with a low-stakes enemy-starcrossed crush connection.
5. Snowflake Freezes Up: When Snowflake is invited to the academy, she doesn’t know what to think as she’s unsure of what her fairytale origin is. She does suspect it might be a bad one considering how her powers go out of control when she gets angry. Ice powers that the sneaky sprite Jack Frost wishes to utilize for himself. As with Goldilocks Breaks In, Williams/Holub continue to dive into morally ambiguous characters, highlighting how everyone has flaws and those flaws don’t have to define you. Your actions and intentions are what count in the end. I also admire how Snowflake’s interest is in architecture. It feels rare that girls get to be interesting in that topic. It only gets lower in the ranking because I felt some parts were repetitive and Snowflake’s other subplot about test anxiety got lost in the shuffle of everything else going on.
6. Gretel Pushes Back: Although Gretel’s story was briefly explored in Red Riding Hood gets lost, it’s here that Gretel truly faces her fears when she gets lost in the wood and ends up in the candy coated house of dreams and nightmares. Serving as the grand finale, the book is lacking oomph as Holub/Williams weren’t sure if their contract would be renewed. So while ends are wrapped up, it doesn’t feel like a grand finale.
7. Sleeping Beauty Dreams Big: Briar Rose arrives at the academy determined to live before her twelfth birthday on Friday when her curse will take effect. But her dreams are quickly squashed when her fairytale identity is revealed, causing everyone to become too overprotective. A total bummer but Rose ends up getting into big danger anyway when she gets wrapped up in the return of E.V.I.L. society and their scheming. Actually, there’s nothing wrong with this book as I enjoyed Rose’s determined daredevil personality and the quick-paced plot. It’s just low because I liked the others a bit.
8. Cinderella Stays Late: The introductory tale gets last as usual because it suffers from intro blues, setting the scene and characters and playing it safe with the fairytale retelling.