Review of Fierce Fairytales: Poems & Stories to Stir Your Soul by Nikita Gill

Read for: Recent Purchase (complete cover buy)

Synopsis: "Traditional fairytales are rife with cliches and gender stereotypes: beautiful, silent princesses; ugly, jealous, and bitter villainesses; girls who need rescuing; and men who take all the glory.

But in this rousing new prose and poetry collection, Nikita Gill gives Once Upon a Time a much-needed modern makeover. Through her gorgeous reimagining of fairytale classics and spellbinding original tales, she dismantles the old-fashioned tropes that have been ingrained in our minds. In this book, gone are the docile women and male saviors. Instead, lines blur between heroes and villains. You will meet fearless princesses, a new kind of wolf lurking in the concrete jungle, and an independent Gretel who can bring down monsters on her own."

My Review: I was really attracted to this book for the cover and title, definitely a cover buy. I was a little put off at the beginning of the book, I was expecting fairytale type short stories and verses but it started out differently, but it did eventually get to what I was expecting. I did find it to be extremely feminist, am all for us ladies standing up for ourselves, being our own power and not relying on men to save us, but this one really verged a little to far into angry feminist for my reading preferences. It definitely relates to current events in that aspect, but for me it was just too much on that statement. I did enjoy many of the poems and short stories, but not all of them (as to be expected with any collection like this). I did enjoy the unique twists Gill gives to these classic stories, sometimes it is backstory and sometimes it is after happily ever after. My favorites were the Peter Pan themed stories and poems.

My Rating: This book was not really what I was expecting, the feminist tone was almost too strong for my enjoyment and I almost put it down. I am glad that I did continue because some of the stories and poems were really fantastic, but as with any collection of poems and short stories, some you will enjoy and others not so much.  I give this one a rating of Two Paws and a Stump Wag.