How to Fracture a Fairy Tale
The Yolen's Short Fiction series, Book 1
Jane Yolen
Tachyon Publishing
Fiction, Collection/Fantasy/Poetry
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: An Appalachian daughter confronts a mother risen from the grave as a vampire... a Jewish girl follows the prophet Elijah to a dark place and time in history for an important task... a lamb nurse listens to the tales of the residents of Happy Dens, a home for retired fairy tale wolves... an elderly woman discovers a strange old man with an ancient secret on the rocks near the lighthouse where she lives... These and other folklore-inspired tales written by fantasy master Jane Yolen are collected in this volume, with a foreword by Marissa Meyer and an afterword about the author's inspirations.
REVIEW: Though her stories aren't always my cup of cocoa, nobody can dispute the mastery evident in the breadth and depth (and length) of Jane Yolen's work. As in pretty much every anthology and collection, though, these are a mixed bag, some feeling rounded and complete and others fragmentary and almost dreamlike. Likewise, some feel a bit long for their premises while others seem truncated. Styles vary from the old-school storyteller cadence and repetition of classic fairy tales to lighthearted snark to darker and/or more literary takes. I've read a few before, while others were new to me. Endings are only rarely clear-cut happily-ever-afters, several skewing rather dark, but then the original stories were far removed from the sanitized versions many are familiar with today. I added the extra half-star for the notes at the end, which go into a bit of "behind the scenes" details on how Yolen conceived and developed the included stories, along with poems matching the themes.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Oddest of All (Bruce Coville) - My Review
Book of Enchantments (Patricia C. Wrede) - My Review
Here, There be Dragons (Jane Yolen) - My Review
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