Month: February 2021

Posted on

Fairy Tale Retellings

“Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”

C.S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

I’ve been wanting to write a post about fairy tale retellings for a while now, and given the topic of last week’s post, I thought now was a good time to do it. First of all, if your only exposure to fairy tales is Disney, you’re not alone, but you’re missing out. Go ahead and read the fairy tales as written by The Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, and Charles Perrault. Some of the stories will be mostly the way you remember them from the Disney movies, but you’ll find that some of them are very different. I remember the first time I read Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. I. Was. Shook.

Once you’ve done that, if you’re up for it, take a look at some fairy tale retellings. What I love about this particular genre is the fact that it’s simultaneously familiar and unique. It’s amazing how many interesting ways someone can tell the same story. The authors who write fairy tales are able to take a formula that everyone knows—Cinderella, for example—and make it new again. Interesting. Fresh. If that sounds fun to you, here are a few you could start with.

Beauty by Robin McKinley

Ever since I saw Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, this has been my favorite fairy tale, but it wasn’t until college that I read Robin McKinley’s version. I picked it up at the insistence of my roommate. It’s her favorite book, and she rereads it every year. She demanded that I read it, even loaning me her own dog-eared copy. I admit that I haven’t read it every year since then, but I went out of my way to buy a copy of my own. If you like this fairy tale, this is a version you should really pick up. It’s very sweet and extremely well-written.

Entwined by Heather Dixon

How is it that Disney hasn’t done a Twelve Dancing Princesses movie? This seems like a no-brainer. Anyway, if you’re a fan of the TDP, you should go ahead and read Entwined. It’s one of the most interesting takes on this fairy tale that I’ve ever read, with well-rounded characters, high stakes, and a super creepy villain. I loved this one.

The Princesses of Westfalin Trilogy by Jessica Day George

Jessica Day George is one of my favorite fairy tale authors. She writes some books that are for children, but these are more Young Adult and they’re super fun. Princess of the Midnight Ball is another Twelve Dancing Princesses retelling, Princess of Glass is, of course, Cinderella, and Princess of the Silver Woods is Little Red Riding Hood meets Robin Hood. They’re all just delightful.

PSA – Jessica Day George also wrote a retelling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, a Norwegian fairy tale that’s kind of like Beauty and the Beast and kind of like the Cupid and Psyche myth. Her book is called Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow, and it’s excellent.

Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix

I discovered this book in middle school. Maybe it’s the power of nostalgia, but I feel like it still holds up. This retelling of Cinderella asks the question, “What would happen if Cinderella found out that the prince was kind of an idiot and royal life was terrible?” It’s such an interesting take on the original tale with a heroine who exercises a tremendous amount of agency throughout the book. I just can’t sing the praises of this one enough. I actually just found out there’s a sequel, and you know it’s on my to-read list!

Stepsister by Jennifer Donnelly

I picked this one up kind of on a whim. I didn’t have super high expectations. I was mostly just hoping it would be an entertaining take on Cinderella. I didn’t expect moments of exquisite prose or brilliant flashes of insight. This book, written from the perspective of one of Cinderella’s stepsisters, allows anyone who has ever felt less than, or not enough, to feel seen. It’s one of the darker books on this list, but it’s well worth the read.

These are just some of my favorite fairy tale retellings, but they’re certainly not the only good ones I’ve read. My list is long. If you’ve read widely in this genre, what are some of your favorites? Let me know!

Happy Reading!

Posted on

Daughters of Eville Series, Chanda Hahn

“What is broken can be fixed.”

Chanda Hahn, Of Thorn and Thread

Because my last few reads have been quite heavy and intense, I decided I needed something lighter this week. I was also feeling under the weather. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to think too hard when I’m sick. So I was looking for something easy and fun when I stumbled across the Daughters of Eville series by Chanda Hahn.

I’m going to level with you. This series isn’t brilliant, but it’s cute. Perfect for reading when you’re sick. The premise is that there’s a woman, Lorelai Eville, who is wronged by the rulers of seven fantasy kingdoms. She vows revenge and raises a group of adopted daughters to be instruments of her vengeance. As you may have gathered from the titles, each book is a fairy tale retelling that highlights a different daughter. It’s an interesting concept, which is sometimes more compelling in theory than in actual execution. That said, it’s fun and entertaining, which is all that I was looking for this week!

Of Beast and Beauty centers on Rosalie, the eldest adopted daughter of Mother Eville. She’s taken to the kingdom of Baist to be wed to their prince, sight unseen. The prince is upset that he wasn’t able to wed the woman of his choice. He’s also heard rumors that Rosalie is a witch who will bewitch him if he looks upon her, so he insists that she wear a veil wherever she goes. Meanwhile, a murderous beast haunts the kingdom. This was honestly the strongest of the series, in my opinion. I felt like the themes of of prejudice and overcoming obstacles were well done. I also enjoyed Rosalie as a character. She took crap from no one.

Sadly, Of Glass and Glamour strikes me as the weakest of this series. It’s a Cinderella retelling with Eden Eville sometimes acting as Cinderella and sometimes as the fairy godmother. It has its moments, and I liked seeing Eden portrayed with having a lot of insecurities because I think that will resonate with people. While Rosalie is kicking butt and taking names, Eden is good at only one thing—magically changing her appearance. She grows throughout the book, but honestly, this one fell sort of flat for me.

Of Sea and Song was pretty fun. If you haven’t guessed it, it’s the Little Mermaid. Merisol goes on the run after she accidentally kills someone while trying to protect one of her sisters. She pretends to be a boy and joins the crew of a ship called the Bella Donna. When the Bella Donna anchors at a mysterious island, Meri finds herself making a deal with a sea witch in order to save the crew. This, of course, does not go well. It was a fun take on the classic story.

In Of Thorn and Thread, Aura Eville is an empath who is constantly bombarded by the thoughts and emotions of everyone around her. She joins with a knight from the kingdom of Rya to save his people from a mysterious blight that’s covered the land in fog and poisonous thorns. This book has some heavier topics, such as mental illness, human trafficking, and abuse. In some ways, this made for a nice change, but sometimes the way Chanda Hahn included these issues was a little clumsy. Still, a perfectly enjoyable Sleeping Beauty retelling.

These books turn a lot of the fairy tales on their heads. They’re not too faithful to the originals, so Hahn gave herself a lot of space to play around and make the stories more character driven. I was pleased that the overarching theme of the books is that sometimes what you think is evil is just misunderstood. As we get to know the daughters of Eville, feared throughout the seven kingdoms as evil witches, what we learn is that more often than not they’re trying to right wrongs and see justice done. They’re not simply seeking vengeance; they’re actively trying to make their world better.

That said, these books all suffer from massive instalove. In pretty much every book, the hero and the heroine hate each other until they’re suddenly violently in love and pledging eternal devotion. I rolled my eyes hard several times. In my opinion, Hahn missed the opportunity to develop those relationships in a more meaningful way. It’s not ideal, but it’s forgivable if you’re just looking for a fun read.

There should be three more books in the series focusing on the three remaining daughters: Maeve, Rhea, and Honor. The next book, Of Mist and Murder, is scheduled to be published on June 22, 2021. I’m planning on checking it out when it’s released.

Happy Reading!

Posted on

The Water Dancer, Ta-Nehisi Coates

“The tree of our family was parted – branches here, roots there – parted for their lumber.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Water Dancer

Every once in a while, a writer comes along who can tell a good story in prose so exquisite that it makes you want to weep. It’s not purple prose. It’s not inflated and self-important. It’s just beautiful. Ta-Nehisi Coates is one of those authors. He has a true gift, and I’ve been privileged to read two of his books so far. I look forward to lots more.

The Water Dancer tells the story of Hiram Walker, the son of an enslaved woman and a plantation owner. He has what we’d probably call a photographic memory, but he can’t remember his mother. All he knows is that she was sold away when he was nine. Tied up with his lost memories is a mysterious power which saved him in the past, but which he struggles to understand and control. He will find that the bonds he forms, his love, his relationships, his memories, his past, all allow him to unlock the potential within himself.

What I loved about this book is how family-centered it is. Many of the historical novels I’ve read that deal with slavery focus on the cost of slavery to the individual. We read of cruel punishments, hard labor, rape, torture, and death. What I feel is missing in some of these novels, and what The Water Dancer illustrates so beautifully, is the cost of slavery to the enslaved family. The children ripped from parents. The parents torn from children. The spouses who never saw one another again. The people who spent the rest of their lives wondering where their brother or sister was, whether they were still alive.

What Ta-Nehisi Coates taught us in this book is that slavery didn’t just destroy individuals. It severed bonds. And even when the enslaved enjoyed times of relative peace, they knew that it couldn’t last. Every moment was poisoned by the thought that their children were not their own to keep. They could not protect them from the block, just as they couldn’t protect their husbands from the lash or their wives from the lusts of their enslavers. Coates paints the psychological pain of these atrocities in painstaking detail. Sometimes it’s difficult to read, but Coates demands that we do not look away.

The whole injunction of The Water Dancer is to remember. We, as individuals, as a nation, must remember. We must remember the people who were lost, the lives that were destroyed, the sins that were committed. I read an article recently that listed some of the major U.S. buildings that were built by the labor of enslaved people: Mount Vernon, Wall Street, the White House, the Capitol Building, the Smithsonian, Trinity Church, Harvard Law School. There are more. We live in a society that was literally built on the backs of people, men, women, and children, who had their lives and their families stolen from them. We forget this at our peril.

I’m not sure why I’ve been reading such heavy stuff lately, but it all seems important and it all seems incredibly urgent. I knew The Water Dancer couldn’t wait any longer. You’ve got to read this one. I know it’s hard, but we can’t look away. We’ve got to remember.