Review: The Rose and the Beast

Title: The Rose and the Beast: Fairy Tales Retold

Author: Francesca Lia Block

Date of Publication: August 7th, 2001

Goodreads Summary:

With language that is both lyrical and distinctly her own, Francesca Lia Block turns nine fairy tales inside out.

Escaping the poisoned apple, Snow frees herself from possession to find the truth of love in an unexpected place.

A club girl from L.A., awakening from a long sleep to the memories of her past, finally finds release from its curse.

And Beauty learns that Beasts can understand more than men.

Within these singular, timeless landscapes, the brutal and the magical collide, and the heroine triumphs because of the strength she finds in a pen, a paintbrush, a lover, a friend, a mother, and finally, in herself.

My Review:

I’m not the biggest fan of short story anthologies, but I find when they are written by the same person vs a collection of authors, I’ve enjoyed them better. So I wasn’t sure what I was going to get, but the author totally owned all these stories! Loved the dark vibes!

Photo Credit

This book has some of my favorite fairy tales—Little Red Riding Hood, Thumbelina, Snow White, etc. And let me just say, not all of them are going to have a happy ending and some will end rather uniquely.

The writing was beautiful and not overly lyrical where I didn’t understand what was going on—it was perfect. This collection goes right into my favorite short story collection right next to Leigh Bardugo’s Language of Thorns!

 

What’s your favorite fairy tale?

Review: The Bear and the Nightingale

Title: The Bear and the Nightingale

Author: Katherine Arden

Date of Publication: January 10th, 2017

Goodreads Summary:

A young woman’s family is threatened by forces both real and fantastical in this debut novel inspired by Russian fairy tales.

In a village at the edge of the wilderness of northern Russia, where the winds blow cold and the snow falls many months of the year, a stranger with piercing blue eyes presents a new father with a gift – a precious jewel on a delicate chain, intended for his young daughter. Uncertain of its meaning, Pytor hides the gift away and Vasya grows up a wild, willful girl, to the chagrin of her family. But when mysterious forces threaten the happiness of their village, Vasya discovers that, armed only with the necklace, she may be the only one who can keep the darkness at bay.

My Review:

This book is multiple point of views, but sometimes it felt like narrator style since the way it bounces back and forth between characters. It actually didn’t bother me the way I thought that it was going to.

The pacing is a slow and beautiful build. The beginning is just developing the characters and getting to know them. Not a lot actually happens in the beginning, but it is still interesting getting to learn about the characters.

One of the main characters, Vasya, is my favorite. She can see different creatures, and she bounces to her own drum beat. Her brother, Alyosha, I loved as well, and I loved the bond between him and Vasya.

When the priest comes into the picture things started to slow down for me, and I wasn’t exactly sure what the purpose of him was, but when the book hit 65% on my Kindle, things began to really pick up. I don’t know what to say about him except he was just out of his mind most of the time!

I was disappointed that there wasn’t more of the frost demon. His character was the most interesting, and I wanted to see more of him. What I did see of him, I loved! The writing, I thought was really good. I did get confused a lot at the beginning with all the characters multiple names for one character, and I wanted a little more to the ending, but overall I really liked it!

How does this book sound to you?

Review: The Fir Tree

ABOUT THE FIR TREE

Gorgeously packaged with intricate illustrations from Finnish illustrator, Sanna Annukka, this new edition of Hans Christian Andersen’s well-loved fairy tale, The Fir Tree, is the perfect holiday gift for adults and children alike.

Hans Christian Andersen’s tragic tale of naive greed and dissatisfaction is retold through the striking and contemporary illustrations of Finnish illustrator Sanna Annukka. Cloth-bound in rich forest green, with gold foil embellishments, The Fir Tree is elevated from a children’s book to a unique work of art and makes an ideal gift for people of all ages.

My Review:

First, that cover!! The cover is so perfect, and the illustrations within are so beautiful. I have never read any of Hans Christen Andersen’s fairy tales, so this was my first go around. I would like to say I am not sure about all of his fairy tales, but at least this one may not be for everyone. I on the other hand really enjoyed it.

This book is about a Fir Tree who starts out as a youngling, and it watches other trees around it being taken away for various reasons, eventually it gets cut down and is going to learn what will be it’s destiny. I think what made this book harder for me was it is as if the tree is an actual person that thinks and feels, so you can’t help but feel bad for this tree.

I would definitely pick up another fairy tale from Hans, and to see how it compares to this one. The thing I liked most about this book was that it wasn’t all flowers and roses and not everything in life is great.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hans Christian Andersen (1805—75) was born in Odense, Denmark, the son of a poor shoemaker, who nonetheless was a great reader, made a toy-theatre for his son and taught him to notice every natural wonder as they walked in the woods together on Sundays. His father died when he was eleven, and it wasn’t until six years later that, with the help of a patron, he finally went to a state secondary school attended by much youger children. There he suffered at the hands of a cruel headmaster, but he aquired an education and was determined to be a writer. He published his first novel and his first fairy tales in 1835; thereafter he wrote over 150 more of these stories which have become classics in many languages.A lonely man who never married, he was also an anxious man; he loved travelling, but would carry a coil of rope with him in case of fire in his hotel. Although he originally addressed his fairy tales to children (and some would maintain he had a streak of childhood in his nature) he insisted they were ‘for all ages’, and the gentleness and humor that are their characteristics are recognized by everyone.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

 

Have you read a Hans Christian Andersen book?

Top Ten Books I Picked Up On A Whim

The lovelies over at the Broke and the Bookish host a weekly meme called Top Ten Tuesdays! Here is this weeks topic:  Ten Books I Picked Up On A Whim (however you decide to interpret that (bought or read or something else) — I know most people read based on recommendation but we want to know those books you picked up without really hearing about or knowing much about!)