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Tag: #fairytale

  • Summer Books

    New Crush by Cassandra Calin Lia is finally feeling settled into her new life. Her friends are amazing, her French is improving, and her periods… ugh, those are still terrible. But Lia’s crush, Julien, is noticing her. Lia thinks he likes her, but she can’t tell for sure. And while she’s obsessing over him, Lia’s not noticing…

  • Sept Books

    Hera by Jennifer Saint Hera usually gets a bad rap by modern perspectives. A shrew, a horrible mother, a jealous bitch are the most common modifiers. Her husband cheats but she punishes the mistresses instead of Zeus himself. Then again, it’s not like she can go on a one on one attack with the King…

  • Book Highlight: Rapunzel’s Revenge & Calamity jack

    If you like Westerns and if you like fairytales, these are for you! Really, they should be everyone cuz comics are cool but that’d be too after-school special. However, I just found it amazing because the fairytale genre just doesn’t have a lot of western AUs. School or towns full of fairytale characters, yes. Erotic…

  • Author Highlight: Neil Gainman

    Initially I was going to stop at Gainman’s classic child horror tale, Coraline, but I saw that he has several fairytale adaptations in his repatoire so I felt I had to read them to complete my fairytale TBR pile. Let’s get to it! The Sleeper and the Spindle was the only “high school” level book…

  • The Bloody Chamber (and Other Stories)

    You know how darker, sexier retellings of fairytales are all the rage? Well you have Angela Carter to thank for that subgenre in fairytale retellings with her collection of short stories that subvert and invert these popular tales to pay homage to their darker origins while making it slyly progressive. Putting the females in peril…

  • Mirror, Mirror Review

    Maguire sets his tale of vanity and murder in 16th century Italy where the wicked queen is played by a historical domain character, Lucrenzia Borgia, sister to Ceseare Borgia who was the inspiration for Machavelli’s The Prince. Lucrenzia is vain but her jealousy of Bianca, the girl as white as snow stems from her brother’s…

  • Book of a Thousand Days Review

    Well then, I think I finished the Shannon Hale fairytale catalogue and like Gail Carson Levine, she should be applauded for her creative twists on classic tales while paying homage to the darker elements of the originals and bringing her vivid descriptions of nature blending in with magic.

  • The Books of Bayern: The Goose Girl Review

    Hale’s haunting retelling of The Goose Girl starts with a princess, a princess born with a word at her tongue. Once she awakes three days later, she doesn’t know the name but she grows entangled with the speech of animals. It’s an ancient magic, and a distrusted one compared to people-speak. Princess Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee…

  • Ogre Enchanted Review

    All Evie wants is to be a healer. In fact, she’s running quite a fruitful apothocary for her village in Jenn with her best friend, Wormy as her first patient and bookkeeper. But much to Evie’s distress, Wormy likes her far more than a friend. Even though they’re way too young in Evie’s opinion but…

  • A Tale of Two Castles Review

    This was unlike any other fairytale Levine has created! Very loosely inspired by Puss in Boots (and by inspired, it has cats, and that’s where the similarities end), Levine creates a distinct new kingdom where 12-year old Elodie sets off to apprentice herself as a mansioner. That’s the word for actor over there. But apprenticenships…