Ten Fairytale Retellings I've Read

Top Ten Tuesday is a feature created by The Broke and The Bookish where they pose a new theme each week. This week it is all about fairytale retellings, something that has become really popular in the past few years. I am kind of well read in the genre, but not overly so. One of the challenges I am doing this year is the Fairytale Retelling one hosted by The Daily Prophecy and I am halfway through and only one book behind so I like to think I have some kind of idea of what I’m talking about.

 

I reviewed this book a while ago and I love it just as much now as I did when I first read it. It is an adaptation of the fairytale of the goose girl (never heard of it? Neither had I) and I loved it. It is a unique fantasy novel which is fun, and fantastic read. I strongly recommend as it does need a bit more attention in the world.

 

This is a Beauty and the Beast retelling which is very light on the retelling part and much heavier on the influence of folktales and folklore. It is absolutely fantastic! I am sure you’ve seen this everywhere and are seriously bored of it, but it is one of my absolute favourite fairytale retellings ever!

 

–This is another Beauty and the Beast retelling with hints of a few other fairytales thrown, helping to add to the originality of this one. Sarah J Maas knows what she is doing what it comes to retellings and making them her own, and you can tell this in this book. It may be a retelling, but if told you honestly could not tell.

 

So, this is meant to be a Cinderella retelling, but honestly, you cannot tell and I don’t feel it really feels like it needs mentioning. It is so far from the original fairytale that if I hadn’t mentioned it here you probably would not have known about it. You will have heard about the series everywhere, so I won’t bore you, but it deserves the attention it has received.

 

The Lunar Chronicles is a collection of different retellings. Cinder is a retelling of Cinderella, Scarlet is a Red Riding Hood retelling, Cress is a retelling of Rapunzel and Winter is going to be retelling of Snow White. I had not heard of this series until I began blogging and I am so glad that I discovered it. It is wonderful and filled with action and adventure and I am so looking forward to rereading.

 

A recent read of mine, a retelling of Sleeping Beauty. It begins slow so I was wary of liking it, but it progressed and grew on me and now I am eagerly awaiting the release of the next book. It begins quite closely resembling the fairytale but then questions how likely it is that Aurora would be happy to be awoken and blindly accept her path of marrying the boy who kissed her and woke her, how creepy?

 

Another recent(ish) read of mine, and always one I instantly felt the need to rave about. This is a retelling of A Thousand and One Nights and it is fantastic. I’ve got A Thousand Nights (another retelling of the same story) and The Wrath & The Dawn will be a hard act to follow for it, but I am optimistic. Anyway, back to The Wrath & The Dawn, it is a fantastic and intense read, my only fault with it is it ended too soon and I’ve got to wait for the next book for some answers!

 

This is an amalgamation of many fairytales creating a fairytale all of it’s own. It is incomparable to anything I’ve ever read, and it was a difficult voice to get into so to be able to class it as a favourite is good. It actually felt like I was reading a fairytale when I was reading this book, the writing is fantastic and perfectly suited to this book. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a different book.

 

This comic book series is just fantastic, it is basically like the fairytales have had to flee their fairytale world (for reasons) and they are living in New York trying to get through. Various storylines occur and you see all the well known (and less well known) fairytale characters. I would recommend it to anyone and everyone and I am excited to reread (again).

 

And there is my list of 9. I know it’s not exactly original or different, but turns out I’ve only read the well known ones thus far. I hope you find one you haven’t read and I would love to hear your thoughts below and all retelling recommendations are appreciated I’m a couple of books behind on my challenge.