I enjoy a good fractured fairy tale and some of these stories were brilliant and engaging but unfortunately most of them either rambled on or came abruptly to an unsatisfying and altogether confusing conclusion. I'm also unsure about the intended audience. Some tales are suitable for YA while others clearly contained more adult content. That being said, these tales have potential and if they had undergone additional plot development I probably would have enjoyed them a great deal more.

I'm a sucker for twisted fairy tales, and i adore Yolen's work, so i expected to fall in love with this book. Alas, i didn't. I can admire Yolen's creativity, but these tales just didn't do much for me.
Teens that i teach may enjoy it more than i did.
I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this collection of fairy tales that author Yolen "fractured" or changed from the original tale.

Hands down my favorite story was Happy Dens which was a retirement home for wolves! I also really enjoyed Great-Grandfather Dragon's Tale and Cinder Elephant. Yolen took stories across backgrounds and from all other the world and I really appreciated the mix of history that comes out in the stories because of that. Also the cover is fantastic, it's really what drew me to the book in the first place!

As with any essay collection I really loved some of the stories while there were several I could take or leave but over all I enjoyed this collection and think it's a great choice for someone who loves fairy tales to pick up.

Thank you Netgalley for my free review copy!

As the title suggests, this book offers alternative versions of traditional fairy tales from various cultures. Many of the stories I already knew, but certainly not all of them.

As with many books of short stories, I absolutely adored many of them and simply tolerated a few. I think my favorite was the tale of Snow White set in Appalachia, with the dwarves as coal miners. The retooling of the Daedalus and Icarus tale so that Icarus did not die was intriguing as well. At the end of the book are backgrounds about each of the fairy tales. I only wish that these backgrounds were included at the end of each story individually. I would have liked to learn more about the tales I didn’t know when they were still fresh in my mind.

I received a free ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This fine assortment of fractured fairy tales, written by " the Hans Christian Andersen of America" are a well-written set of tales that please the eye and the imagination. Some of these I have read previously, but are still a worthwhile re-read.

I have fond memories of reading Jane Yolan's books many years ago and so was drawn to this new collection of 'fractured fairytales,' offered to me by NetGalley in return for an honest review. I am also fond of retellings of traditional tales and saw several titles right away that made me smile: Happy Days in the Old Wolves Home, Big Bad Wolf stories from another point of view, and Green Plague, a retelling of the Pied Piper with amphibians.

There are about two dozen short stories and the quality varies. Some were quite enjoyable. My favorites were The Foxwife and Ox One, Ox Two, Ox Three and the Dragon King.

Like many fairytales a young innocent girl is taken advantage of by a slimy prince or selkie. I wish these stories had been fractured and broken further, and then rebuilt into tales where the girls are empowered to escape this particular trope.

Jane Yolen is, as many know, an award-winning and oft-hailed writer of fantasy. However, her work has never stuck with me much, and I wanted to read this collection, which includes work from throughout her career and author's notes on each story, as well as a poem for each story, to try to figure out why. Having read the book, I find her work rather dated and stuck in a 1970s ethos of second-wave feminism, and where she tries for inclusivity--borrowing Appalachian speech patterns and the like--her work comes off as being appropriative. I think it's also aimed for readers we don't really have anymore: young readers who have never heard a fairy tale from the "villain's" POV; readers to whom the hint of sex is titillating, and who only know the cliches of heternormativity; readers who have grown up with characters and plots more sophisticated than what Yolen delivers. I wanted to find stories here that really stood out, that I could recommend to young readers and even older or more experienced readers who like subversions of the norm, but Yolen's writing is prosaic and dull, the issues she deals with are old and tired, and there's unfortunately little magic to be found here.

I’ve always loved Jane Yolen’s fairy tale adaptations. I grew up with The Curse of the Thirteenth Fey on my bedside table, and her twists on old tales always hooked me just as well as the originals did. I liked the varied settings and voices in this anthology, with “The Bridge’s Complaint,” “Sister Death,” and “Slipping Sideways Through Eternity” standing out as my favorites. They range from humorous to serious, and include fun twists on originals (what if the beautiful princess had a horrible personality?) as well as complete reshapings (what if the Big Bad Wolf’s side of the story wasn’t left out?).

However, I feel like some of the stories should have been longer, especially those with unfamiliar sources. Some were only a page long, and at the end I was left confused because I hadn’t read the original, and couldn’t tell what had been changed. I will give points for the notes at the back of the book, though, which briefly summarize how Yolen chose to tell the story and a short poem for each which recounts the source material, but I don’t feel that this makes up for the lack of detail in the adaptations shown here.

Totally worth a read from both hardcore fairy tale lovers, as well as readers just looking for a fun anthology! 4/5 stars.

Yolen definitely has a way of enchanting her audience just like the original tales she's fracturing. This book was a joy to read. I really love short stories and the ones I enjoy the most are retellings of fairy tales or those that are reminiscent of the old tales I have known by heart since I was a little kid. It's a beautiful collection of stories that feels like I'm discovering fairytales all over again.

Thank you to Netgalley, Jane Yolen, and Tachyon Publications for the pre-pub access.

For the most part, I enjoyed this book of modified/retold/"fractured" fairy tales. However, some of them seemed stunted -- they had a good start, a good/fair middle, then suddenly ended, as though only the outline of the story was ready at publication.

How to Fracture a Fairy Tale by Jane Yolen is one of those once in a lifetime books you’ll probably love but never fully reread. My anticipation of this book was immense, largely due to the subject matter of this book and the introduction written by the wonderful Marissa Meyer. I admit, I did squee a bit upon seeing her name. Yolen does a fantastic job of reworking the stories from this world’s past, weaving deeply moving and poignant reimaginings of the tales many of us know and love.

And they were quite fascinating in a great number of ways. From Granny Rumple to Cinder Elephant, Yolen’s writing has an adicting quality and manages to touch on some very important topics with some very important morals to be gleaned from them. The thing about How to Fracture a Fairy Tale is that you will likely enjoy a great many of her stories very much. Others, however, you will grow bored of and wish to skim. I think the most difficult piece of reading this book was the fact that I would fall in love with a story, grow increasingly interested, and then it would be over and I was on to the next one, still reeling from what I’d read moments previously. As such, some stories seemed quite subpar when they followed masterpieces like Granny Rumple.

Overall, I am rather fond of this collection of stories. Yolen even goes so far as to leave a few paragraphs at the end of her book to give the reader further information regarding where the tales came from, their inspiration, and what brought her to write it. I really enjoyed the experience of learning these bits and pieces, especially since I (shockingly) did not recognize all of the stories which had inspired her work. How to Fracture a Fairy Tale is certainly quite worth reading and I think a great number of people will have a blast of a time with it. I know I did.

I received an advance reader copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. How to Fracture a Fairy Tale comes out on November 5th.

Summary

What if Icarus survived his fall into the sea? What if the village that once wronged the pied piper made the same mistake again? What if Cinderella was fat in a world of thin people, and the prince still loved her more than anyone else?

In this collection, author Jane Yolen fractures well-known stories to reveal the beauty–and ugliness–within.

Review

If you’ve been keeping up with this blog, you may have already realized that this book sounds a lot like the last one I reviewed, Can’t Catch Me. And it is very similar, except for one major thing: this collection is everything I wanted from the other, and more.

These stories are not merely the same story from a different perspective (although sometimes they are from a different perspective). Some of them are stories weaved together from many inspirations in one culture’s folklore, some move the story to a new time and/or place, and some play on the expectations for the story and fairy tales in general to make a point. My favorite, the one that moved me the most, is the fracturing of Rumpelstiltskin. I won’t go into details about it, because I believe it is much more moving if you read it for yourself, so if you’re curious, you’ll just have to get the book.

What made the collection even better is that at the end, there is a section of notes and poems; each story has about a paragraph explaining how Yolen came to write it, and an accompanying poem on the same story, though not always with the same take on it. I love reading about how someone came up with their ideas, and the notes being at the back means that if you don’t care to read them, you can easily skip them.

Rating

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 5/5 stars

This collection of fractured fairy tales is a must-read for any lover of folklore. All of the stories are beautiful in their own way, and some are truly amazing. If you like fairy tales, especially retellings of them, you need to read this book.

This book is a bunch of short stories/poems, which can make it hard to review. Like with all short story books, some of the stories I enjoyed, while others were just ok. There weren't any that I hated. The whole book together was a very quick read. The author did a great job with fracturing fairy tales to make them entertaining. I will be adding this to my fractured fairy tale bookmarks for the library.

Thank you to net galley for providing a copy for review.

I've never read anything by Jane Yolen before but I really liked this collection of fairytales. She put such a unique spin on some well known classics. There were also some from other cultures that I had never read as well. I'm going to break this down and highlight some of my favorite stories from the book.
The Bridge's Complaint: This was so unique. It's a twist on the billy goats story but told from the perspective of the bridge. It was interesting having a story from the POV of an inanimate object.
Happy Dens: In this story we have a retirement home for the famous wolves from Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs, but we get to hear their sides of the stories.
Slipping Sideways Through Eternity: This was a tale centered around Elijah (from the old testament) and the effects of the Holocaust. I really enjoyed this one and liked how it shows how consequences can be felt through the generations.
Cinder Elephant: This was a fun quirky take on the Cinderella tale.

I really enjoyed this collection. If you like to see classic fairy tales and fables flipped on their heads I recommend checking this book out.

I love listening to cover songs. Sure there are a lot of really crappy versions where the singer is simply mimicking the sound and stylistic flourishes of the original artist, but I am talking about cover songs where the new artist brings a reinterpretation to a familiar piece of music, and makes me hear that classic song in a completely new way.

For just the same reason, I love reading retellings of classic novels or fairy tales. I love comparing my knowledge and memories about the original with the new interpretation and understanding that I find in a successful reworking. And finding this book on NetGalley has been like stumbling upon a treasure chest for me.

Jane Yolen’s How to Fracture a Fairy Tale is a collection of short stories that are reinterpretations of folk tales and fairy tales from a large variety of traditions. She resells classic fairy tales from Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm, Native American stories, Greek Mythology, Japanese folk tales, Celtic mythology and more. And I found each and every story different in tone, in style and from a different point of view, both from the original and from each other.

The last chapter of the book is an explanation about how she came to create each of these stories, accompanied by a poem she wrote for each one. It was only after reading this chapter that I understood that this book is a collection of stories taken from her 50 year writing career. I am absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to seek out her other work.

Yolen definitely has a way of enchanting her audience just like the original tales she's fracturing. When I was younger I used to select fairytales from the library and spend entire days just reading different versions of a story, or huge collections of Grimm, Andersen and Perrault. Yolen's writing gave me those same feelings back but with even darker twists.

I usually select a few favourites when reviewing an anthology, however, despite how strong this anthology is as a whole I didn't really feel any standouts. None of the stories really caught me. There were definitely some strong ideas and fascinating fractures in this book but none of them really resonated with me. Perhaps the issue is I couldn't quite see myself in any of these stories, though I have no doubt plenty of young adults will find themselves among these pages.

There were also several stories I didn't really...understand? I've never had much trouble understanding a well-written book. Yolen's prolific natures leads me to believe this is in fact well written. They read like real fairy tales of old which is no doubt the intentions. Occasionally though, I found myself struggling to understand exactly what had gone on. Was that a rape? I'm not certain it was so very lightly and vaguely implied I can't tell if anything happened at all.

This book brought me joy, it reminded me how much I love old fairy tales and I'll definitely be picking up a fairy tale collection in the near future because of it. I don't love this book though and that breaks my heart. It's clear that Yolen is a master of her craft, but it just wasn't for me. I did find the explanations of why/how she fractured each story at the end to be enlightening though, even if the poems were a bit much.

— I received a free eARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for a honest review. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher! —

In this book, Jane Yolen retells familiar tales with a twist, and in a second part explains her reasoning for some of the tales and accompanies them all with poems. What needs to be kept in mind here is that these are very much grown-up fairy tales, and many of them are not suitable for children.
I really enjoyed the story part, but as someone averse to poetry pretty much suffered through the second part. Some of the stories were absolutely fantastic and led to much reflection, especially the ones referring back to the author’s Eastern European Jewish background - one of my favourites was her retelling of the tale of Rumpelstiltskin as a Jewish money lender. I am more critical towards others, where the author incorporated traditions taken from other cultures but presented it in a way that is familiar to western readers.

Written by Jane Yolen, this is a collection of common/traditional/not so common fairy tales that have twists. And these twists were delightful.

Some are a few stories, some are a single, some are a theme in tales, some aren't. But they are all well written, each stands on its own, and they are all interesting.

This is a great book for anyone who likes TRADITIONAL, you know, not small child approved today, fairy tales. Very, very good. If you are a fan of urban fantasy or any kind of fantasy, I think you should give this collection a try. You might not like all of it, but there is likely at least one you will enjoy.

I was definitely on the fence with this collection. I enjoyed some of the tales. I found them to be great reimaginings of the stories I grew up with and liked to see the different outcomes and perspectives. The stories that I did like were quirky and had a clear flow to them. They did not stray too far from the original except for a few key points. I also liked the way yhte the stories were tied together with the old wolves' home.
Some of the tales were very unfamiliar to me and left me wondering what was changed (other than a happy ending usually). I did not necessarily dislike these tales, they seemed to have a different vibe that did not quite work for me. Some tales were a bit to drug out and lost my interest. I would have liked them better with more explanation. I did like their look into other cultures and new ideas.
On the whole, I felt this was more of a text book for writing than it was a book of fairy tales with twists to be enjoyed by the average reader. It became a chore to read and lost its enjoyment throughout the collection.

Jane Yolen frattura davvero le fiabe classiche: anzi, le frattura, scompone, smembra, sviscera, lima, e infine ricompone in pezzi nuovissimi con il sapore antico delle fiabe che conosciamo da sempre, in tutte le loro multiformi varianti.

Spesso brevissimi, sempre scritti bene, i racconti compongono un'antologia ricca di suggestioni, personaggi, soluzioni; e se ho apprezzato meno i brani più grotteschi o surreali (come Happy Dens), la bellezza impeccabile di altri (Godmother Death o Granny Rumple fra tutti) più che riequilibrano la bilancia.

Una raccolta da leggere e gustare, con calma, e un sorriso pronto.