Lovely, lovely collection of re-told, fractured and twisted fairy tales. The author puts a new and fascinating spin on tales from all over the world. I enjoyed this very much.

This is a beautiful collection of stories that feels like I'm discovering fairytales all over again. Yolen's constant awareness and wit fractures plots and characters archetypes into something new and familiar. Granny Rumple in particular brings this to mind as Yolen gives it a haunting familiarity for those who know their Jewish history - the spilled blood, fear in the air, and a family torn apart in a patter that repeats for hundreds of years. Her other stories also demonstrate how fairytales do not exist in a vacuum, and are products of the cultures and people that give birth to them. This reminds us the power of stories, and is something she expands on in her notes in the end. In fact, I wish more anthologies had these author's notes because it really does show the fun and creativity that was involved.

I would recommend this to fans of fairytales, those who suffered hearing my undergrad research on monster narratives, and folklorists, Buy a physical copy because this should be something to cherish.

On a side note: do you know how hard it is to find reimagined Jewish folktales? I am literally going to throw copies of 'How to Fracture a Fairy Tale' at my friends because there are now more to read.

Thank you to Tachyon publishing for the arc of this book, I did enjoy the retelling of these old fairy tales, Cinderella was my favourite, but I have come to the conclusion short stories aren’t for me, they are too short, I wanted a couple of these stories to carry on, but over all a good read.