This title was not exactly what I was expecting, as I was expecting a Disney sort of remake. I enjoyed the authenticity of this title in its own light, but it was not my favorite of 2018.

I loved this book! The full review will be posted soon at kaitgoodwin.com/books! Thank you very much for this wonderful opportunity to connect books to their readers!

Thank you Tachyon Publications and Net Galley for the free review copy. I love fairy tales, fractured or otherwise. Yolen is a master at fractured fairy tales, and her related poems add a little something extra to the stories. The wide range of fairy tales and creativity with which they're altered kept me reading. I couldn't put it down, and I was sad to reach the end of the book. There's something for everyone in this collection, from sad to humorous and everything in between. I definitely recommend this book!

I was thoroughly impressed with this writing. What a fun collaborative of writing. I love how the author made the stories included come alive.

Janet Yolen is one of the most prolific writers of our time and one of the things she handles best are fairy tales. In her new book How To Fracture a Fairy Tale, Yolen gathers fairy tales and changes them in ways that are often a bit on the dark side. 

The stories sometimes deals with concepts like child abuse or the end of the world. Others are small pieces of pure joy. One even tells the tale of The Billy Goats Gruff from the perspective of the bridge itself. Like most short story collections, some are a delight to read and some are just a quick read until you get to the next. If you like unusual stories with a touch of the familiar, this book is highly enjoyable. A few of my favorites are "Snow in Summer" and "The Moon Ribbon."

How to Fracture a Fairy Tale is now available from Tachyon Publications.

How to Fracture a Fairy Tale is an interesting retelling of many fairy tales, some that we know of, others that we don't. Jane Yolen recreates some of the most well-known fairy tales like Cinderella or Snow White and creates a completely new one. Unlike normal retellings, Yolen truly fractures the fairy tale and makes it an almost original one. I did find it really interesting to read stories that I know and love in a completely different way and to see it in a new light. There is a variety of stories from around the world and from different cultures that I've never heard of. It was really fun reading them, though I wish I had read the original before reading the retelling so I knew how it was altered.
All in all, How to Fracture a Fairy Tale by Jane Yolen is an amazing compilation of retellings of legends and stories around the world. As an avid retellings fan, I found it an enjoyable read.

This is a fun book of short stories. The stories are all kinds of fairy tales retold. I wish some of them were full length novels because I feel like they'd make really epic books. This was such a fun read.

I read this book for two reasons: Marissa Meyer wrote the introduction, and fairy-tale retellings are one of my favorite things EVER.

WHAT I LIKED:

-Jane Yolen's writing is beautiful. I wish I could write like her. These fractured fairy-tales are written with a simplicity that stuns.
-There were several lovely, clever retellings. I'm not going to list titles because everyone will find different favorites but I'll just say that I really enjoyed many of these stories.
-Especially the ones involving the Jewish people because yessss.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:

-There was some weird magic and worldview stuff. And enough inappropriate content for me to not recommend this book to young readers.

Overall, a sometimes enchanting, sometimes problematic read.

<i>I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.</i>

I love that Jane Yolen's works are being repackaged and presented for a new generation of readers, she's truly a master for people to discover and re-discover. Her endless imagination for new situations of established characters reminds me of the way Charles de Lint describes people needing to be "re-storied" at different times in their lives in order to return balance to their lives -- I would not be surprised if Jane Yolen inspired him to write that. While the original tales can open up new truths and new points in our lives, Yolen's re-framing can help us discover even more.
While there were a few new tales for me, as a longtime fan, I probably would not re-purchase for myself but would absolutely hand to younger women in my life.

A wonderful collection of fractured fairy tales by a master storyteller. Be sure to read the behind the story info at the end of the book for Yolen's insight.

I don't know how it's happened, but it feels like I've been reading a whole lot of different fairytale reimaginings and retellings lately, and it's fantastic. I've not read any of Jane Yolen's previous works (although my research since reading How to Fracture a Fairytale leads me to understand that she is quite a prolific writer) and this was a lovely introduction to her work through the familiar lens of fairytales.

This is, essentially, a collection of fractured fairytales - both the very famous ones and some of the more obscure tales - with a spin on them I haven't seen before. It also served to highlight just how few traditional tales I actually know well, because I was constantly having to look up the original source material to understand the changes that we made.

I have to say, my favourite stories were the retellings of The Three Billy Goats Gruff (from the Bridge's perspective) and the Cinderella retelling - which I would not have originally thought to be stories I'd gravitate towards but I ended up loving and am still thinking about them now.

If you enjoy fairytale retellings, this is definitely worth a look when it's released in November 2018.

Jane Yolen delivers again! This collection of fractured, short, fairy tale retellings is sweet and fun. The characters truly seem realistic with outcomes that seem much more likely. I did find that a few of the stories moved a bit slow, which seems odd given that they were all so short. These delightful stories will entertain any reader who likes a bit of edge to their fantasy. I highly recommend her work.

This is the first book I have read of Jane yolen , so I dont know about her writing style.

I love the stories told from different point of views. The one from a bridge and from death herself are just mind blowing.

I wasn't born and raised from english speaking origin , so I dont know the original versions of many stories.

This was a fun and light read . Short stories are always my favourites and they are finished soon (too soon though).

I've always been a sucker for a good fractured fairy tale and I love Jane Yolen. I wish I could say that I loved every single fractured fairy tale in this book. However, I did not. Don't get me wrong. Some stories were cute, fun, darkly intriguing, and entertaining. I loved the story of the Billy Goats Gruff told from the point of view of the bridge, and Cinder Elephant, where Cinderella is a "pleasingly plump" heroine. However, some stories were just too long and tiresome to get through. If you enjoy fractured fairy tales, I would recommend reading this one. It's just not one that I'm going to rush out to buy a copy of.

Ordinarily, I love fairytale retellings, so I was excited about this, I even enjoyed the sheer randomness of the premise of these tales, fractured indeed, one told from the perspective of a bridge, and lots of other reimaginings in between, but overall, it didn't really do it for me. I felt like by the end, each story had the same pattern, and the writing wasn't too engaging, in fact, I found it tiresome and repetitive by the end.

This book was a fresh take on classic fairy tales (three punk pigs), but also included original stories.
The stories were thought provoking and interesting.

The end of the book was really interesting when the Author described the thought behind her "fractures"

While this book was really fun I did recently read a book with the same premise, and I couldn't help but compare the two while I was reading.
While I know that this was not fair to this book, nor its author, it was inevitable and unfortunately this book fell a little short.
I still really enjoyed it, I loved the cover art, and would still recommend this book to friends

This Collection Of Fractured Fairy Tales Is A MUST Read For People That Thoroughly Enjoys Folklore, Fairy Tales And Retellings

"Fairy Tales always have a happy ending.' That depends... on whether you are Rumpelstiltskin or the Queen.".
-Jane Yolen

How to Fracture a Fairy Tale is a collection of twenty-eight revamped, refined, and rewritten fairytales. Before reading these tales, I had not heard of Jane Yolen, though the book included several claims to her great fantasy-writing skill (a quick Google search shows she has written or edited more than 365 books). I went in with high expectations, and though some of her twisted tales were misses, others were a pleasure to read. In this review, I’ll cover some of the highs and lows in the collection, with passing notes on Yolen’s own commentary concerning the “behind-the-scenes” for the tales.

HIGHS (Five to Four Crowns)
Happy Dens or a Day in the Old Wolves’ Home: In this story, a lamb nurse starts her first day at “Happy Dens,” which she quickly learns in a nursing home for wolves. The frightened lamp wants to quit, but instead lends an ear to the wolves, who assure her that the terrible tales she has heard about wolves are all wrong. Yolen gives a new twist to several wolf-centered stories in this fairy tale, characterizing the old wolves that were previously just villains in tales such as “Little Red Riding Hood.” At the end of the story, you’ll find sympathy for the old wolves and question tales you’ve grown up loving.

Granny Rumple: Yolen retells the tale of Rumpelstiltskin where the dreaded child-snatcher is a Jewish man. In this version, the question of guilt is complicated by racial prejudices. At the start of this story I was disoriented (consider this was the first short in the collection that integrated concepts of racism and real world prejudices, against the previously humourous stories of retired wolves) but by its end I was applauding Yolen on the thought-provoking ties she made between a childhood story and the lives of Jews in the ghetto. This is not the only fairy tale in the connection that weaves in tales of Jewish life, antisemitism, and faint-to-full on mentions of the Holocaust but this is the only one I found a success.

One Ox, Two Ox, Three Ox, and the Dragon King: Three sons travel across the land to gather magical items and persuade a dragon king to come to their aid when their mother falls ill. This may be my favourite story in the collection. It has the formulaic set-up I expect in fairy tales (One Ox goes to get a magic item, Two Ox repeats those steps) and then the plot twist ending with magic sprinkled all around. It took Yolen almost a year to complete this story, and she wove Chinese and Western fairy tale influence together to create it.

Brother Hart, The Faery Flag, Green Plague, and The Woman Who Loved a Bear: These four stories are separate, but for the sake of your time (I don’t want to make this review 2000 words long!) I will condense them to a quick mention. Green Plague is a hilarious retelling of The Pied Piper (I love the loud-mouthed mayor) and The Woman Who Loved a Bear was a sweet tale. As the book summary states, not every fairy tale has a happy ending, and Brother Hart broke my heart at the end. The Faery Flag is based on the actual Faery Flag in Scotland, and comes to life in Yolan’s telling.

LOWS (One to Two Crowns)
Slipping Sideways Through Eternity: In this tale, Shanna continues to a see a man that no one else can. On the day she finally follows him, he takes her through time and space to a death camp, where she lives amongst the prisoners and looks for a way to escape. I was very confused with this tale. I didn’t quite understand who Elijah (the man) was, or why he took Shanna to this death camp. At the end of the tale, we learn that one of the little girls Shanna befriended (and subsequently saved from the death camp, with Elijah’s help) was her great-grandmother. Was this the purpose, to go back and save her great-grandmother? But why is her great-grandmother so important, out of all the victims? Also while in the death camp, Shanna is instructed to paint Elijah’s face to start a movement. Overall, I was very confused with this tale. (EDIT: I just Googled Elijah, and from what I understand, he is a Jewish prophet. But that doesn’t clarify the events of this book.)

The Unicorn and the Pool: [SPOILERS] Several animals are gathered around a pool of water, drinking, when they notice poison in the water. They stop drinking but a unicorn approaches, not noticing. A monkey warns the unicorn away and instead, the unicorn cleanses the water with his horn. A few days later the unicorn dies. I didn’t understand this story. Obviously the plot is quite clear, but the meaning was lost on me.

The Golden Balls: A retelling of The Princess and The Frog, where the princess sleeps with the frog and bears his child. This story just made me uncomfortable. I don’t know if I read it wrong, but the story depicts a sexual tension between the frog and the princess. I went over the story three times trying to understand lines like “she lay upon [her bed], trembling, moist as a well” (when waiting for the frog to come) but also “[the frog] took from her what she did not wish to give.” Sadly, Yolen’s comments at the end of the book do nothing to clarify this tale.

Allerleirauh: A queen dies in childbirth and the father, devastated, refuses to look upon his daughter. Many years later, the king requests a ball to find a new wife, wanting to wed only a woman who looks exactly like his former love. This story started out strong, and I would have loved it, except right at the climax Yolen steps in and … basically spoils the ending? The king has announced the ball, tension is high, and then Yolen takes a paragraph or two to say, “This is how everything unrolls now: the king does this, the daughter does this, the end.” Which is so abrupt and clumsy that any ambiance created with the beginning of the tale is ruined.

Sister Death: A woman is turned into an immortal blood-drinker by G-d and feeds on the blood of sickly and/or dying children for five thousand years. Then one day she saves a child from a death camp. This was another story was confused me. I think part of the problem is genre — I wasn’t prepared for a story that dealt all of a sudden with real death and the Holocaust and G-d. The ending was also abrupt, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to learn, or understand.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS (Three Crowns)
Godmother Death, The Foxwife, Mama Gone: Godmother Death is a twisted tale that personifies death and shows her power over mortals. I enjoyed the story up until the end, which I’ll say was creative but much too abrupt. The Foxwife was another story that I loved for its creativity but could have done with more time spent on its ending. An angry man is sent to live alone on an island for however much time is needed to reign in his rage. To his surprise, he finds a woman living there. The two form a bond and end up married … but the man never really clears up his rage? I’ll admit the way it ended left me a bit worried. Lastly, Mama Gone was another story that shocked me because of the genre shift (though at this point I was used to it). The mother-daughter relationship is really sweet and interesting to see played out.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
One thing I can see clearly is that Yolen is a master at adopting different writing styles. She can glide into Western fairy tales as easily as she adopts Chinese myths. Her characters are equally flexible, changing to the time and space of the tale she weaves. No, this collection is not entirely similar, but at its core all the stories put forwards themes and morals — and entertain.

In general, I preferred her high-fantasy retellings to those based in the real-world. I did not understand enough of her cultural references, or connect with the characters (such as Shanna in Slipping Sideways Through Eternity). Because this is a collection, I received all sorts of genres in one. For this reason, I think I would have more success picking individual Yolen books than searching within her collections.

RATING
Three and a half crowns. As I mentioned at the beginning, there were stories within this collection that I enjoyed and others that simply did not hit the mark. I would let you decide if this is a collection worth getting based on my review, BUT I do think Yolen’s individual books are worth exploring as clearly she is the master of fairy tales that reviews claim her to be. If I could have full-length versions of tales in the vein of One Ox, Two Ox, Three Ox […] I would be set!

Review posting on Goodreads on November 15 2018: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2516410364
Review posting on blog on November 15 2018: https://bookprincessreviews.wordpress.com/

Loved this book. Give the author a fairy tale and she can definitely fracture it. I loved all the stories, but Godmother Death was my favorite one. Great collection of stories. New take on old fairy tales. Great book. I received this book from Net Galley and Tachyon Publications for a honest review and no compensation otherwise.

3.5*

I'm a sucker for fairy tale retellings and Yolen does a fantastic job of re-imagining the classics, as well as a few that I'm personally not as familiar with. I enjoyed these less than the more universally known ones such as Snow White, Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, and the likes.
This is only because the stories are so short I believe that they benefit from the reader already having an understanding of the themes that are being explored, and the enjoyment lies in seeing how the story unfolds through the authors interpretation.

~ Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this title ~