The ramblings of a bibliophile.
This is such a great fairy tale! It’s filled with beautiful pictures, different outlooks (like an ogre dancing) and a great couple at the very centre. The fact that this great couple happens to be a lesbian one just makes this story all the sweeter and greater. It becomes this beautiful, encompassing storyline that makes you swoon again and again and again.
The introduction to this short story tells you that you are going to recognise the fairy tale upon which it is based at the end of the tale. And, to be honest, I wasn’t really sure that I was going to recognise it. there just seemed to be nothing recognisable in it. Until the last two pages… then I finally understood exactly which fairy tale this was. And I loved it.
This is an incredibly easy, fun and engaging short story collection. It takes some brilliant authors who take you on journeys through well known fairy tales. The fact that these retellings all focus on the villains of the stories just made me love it even more. I always love the highlighting of grey areas and alternate tellings.
Read more Troll’s-Eye View edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling
I loved that this was a retelling of The Billy Goats Gruff, but through the lens of loss. Or, more specifically about a lost future and lost chances. It gave a fairy tale that already feels a little eerie a far more haunting appeal. There was something about a broken down village and an abandoned bridge that made you think of people who are broken and unable to fulfil their dreams and potential.
This is the first comfortable story that I’ve read in Snow White, Blood Red for a little while. Most of the stories in this collection highlight the sexual component of some very well known fairy tales and make it far more twisted than is necessary. This one on the other hand, gives a modern day retelling to an old classic (I’ve not read the original, but I have read another story based on this fairy tale).
Read more The Springfield Swans by Caroline Stevermer and Ryan Edmonds
I’ve read a lot of fae stories in my time. And a lot of them have had a changeling as the lead character. There is always a sense of sympathy invoked by their plight too. Often the mother they have been left with doesn’t accept them and leaves them feeling lost and forlorn. This is the first story that I’ve read which focuses on how horrible and terrifying this situation would be for the mother. And now some of my favourite characters have made me feel turned on my head too.
As a child I always admired the children who could overcome the giants in the fairy tales. After all, they’re triumphing over someone and something far bigger and scarier than they are. But, the older I get, the more I realise that children are not necessarily always in the right. And, sometimes they are actually kind of in the wrong… and apparently Snyder agrees with this sentimentality.
This was the least disturbing short story I’ve read in the Snow White, Blood Red collection in a while. Don’t get me wrong, it was still kind of sexualised and disturbing. But a lot less so than the past few stories that I’ve read. They were just downright, destroy my love of fairy tales disturbing. This was just a slightly uncomfortable feeling of disturbing.
I’ve never really questioned why there was a gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel. Or why it seems to be something that is repeated across fairy tales. After all, it is a really impractical and useless way in which to make a house. And it kind of seems just… sticky to live in.
The entire time I was reading this short story, I was remembering watching the movie Thumbelina as a kid. And how much I truly loved it. And then, when the little film reel in my head stopped, I started thinking about the original Hans Christian Andersen tale that I read only a few months ago.
