My Top 3 Anticipated Releases of 2018!

I try to take part in Top Ten Tuesday every week and not too long ago I talked about all of the book releases I'm looking forward to this year. I've since discovered even more and today I thought I'd pick the top three books I'm most looking forward to which are being published in 2018.

It wasn't until I compiled this list that I realised that all three of these books are retellings in some way, which I wasn't expecting as I've been staying away from retellings for fear of reading too many and getting fed up with them like I did with dystopian fiction. Since finishing The Lunar Chronicles, though, I've been eager for more retellings that capture my imagination the way that series did.

In 2017 I finally read Madeline Miller's The Song of Achilles and it became not only one of my favourite reads of the year but one of my favourite books of all time. I went into mourning after finishing that book and it feels like I read it at the perfect time as Miller's second novel, Circe, is being released in April. Like The Song of Achilles, Miller is giving her own spin on another character from the Ancient Greek legends, Circe, who is considered to be one of the very first fictional witches. This one is my most anticipated read of 2018 and I can't wait to get my hands on a copy!

I've been pretty underwhelmed with the Shakespeare retellings I've encountered recently. Anne Tyler's Vinegar Girl completely missed the point of The Taming of the Shrew and Robin Talley's As I Descended didn't capture Macbeth in the way I'd hoped, but when I heard Tor were publishing a high fantasy novel inspired by King Lear I knew I had to keep it on my radar. I've been getting back into high fantasy since reading and adoring The Goblin Emperor back in 2015 and I'm so looking forward to reading a story about three sisters fighting for the same crown. I've yet to read any Tessa Gratton but I have high hopes that I'm going to love The Queens of Innis Lear.

I'm probably as surprised as you are to see this book here as it's no secret that I wasn't the biggest fan of Uprooted. I didn't dislike it, but it left me feeling a bit empty and took me a long time to get through. I wasn't all that intrigued when I heard Naomi Novik was releasing another fairy tale inspired book until I came across Spinning Silver and realised she'd written a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin. Rumpelstiltskin just so happens to be my favourite fairy tale, I read it so many times when I was younger, and I have been waiting for a retelling for the longest time. I might not have enjoyed Uprooted as much as I wanted to, but I'm hoping to love this one! (I'm also hoping we might have a different cover in the UK that matches the UK cover of Uprooted).

Which books are you most looking forward to this year?

Review | The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

by Angela Carter

My Rating: 

From familiar fairy tales and legends--Little Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss-in-Boots, Beauty and the Beast, vampires, and werewolves--Angela Carter has created an absorbing collection of dark, sensual, fantastic stories.

I wasn't introduced to Angela Carter in the best way. I was pretty bright at school and I loved English Literature, but at 17 and 18 I wasn't as sophisticated as many other people my age out there were - writers like Angela Carter and Jane Austen baffled me rather than amazed me. I just didn't 'get' them, and because I didn't get them I translated that confusion into contempt and decided I didn't like them.

I was first introduced to Angela Carter in sixth form when we had to read Wise Children and it wasn't a good way for me to be introduced to her as a writer. Some of the students loved it, but I wasn't a fan of bizarre fiction then and that novel was way too weird for my tastes. It still is, to be honest. Foolishly, however, I let that novel taint my view of Carter's other work, so when I was introduced to The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories I decided I didn't like it before I'd even read it.

This is basically a very long-winded way of me saying that I finally decided to give Carter another chance - I've grown as a reader and my tastes are very different to what they were at 18 - and this time around, when I read The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, I bloody loved it. I finally 'got' her.

I often see this collection referred to as a collection of retellings, but I'm not sure if I'd describe them that way. Are these the original fairy tales? No, but to me they feel more like updated versions of the originals than complete retellings. After all, there are so many different versions of fairy tales all around the world; the Grimm Brothers collected their tales, they didn't write them themselves. I mention this because, to me, The Bloody Chamber is always what I think of when I think of the Bluebeard tale - even when I read this collection before and didn't really care for it that story stuck in my head, and I now know it, and love it, far better than any other version.

The first three stories in this collection were definitely my favourite, but there weren't any that I disliked. Even the stories that I still found just plain weird were a joy to read because the way Carter uses language is such a treat; after The Bloody Chamber are two versions of Beauty and the Beast back-to-back, my other two favourite stories in the collection, and even though they were the same story at their core I wasn't bored reading them so close together. In fact those two stories in particular are testament to Carter's talent as a writer; that she can tell the same story in two such different ways, without repeating herself, shows true skill.

This collection is strange and vulgar and sometimes enigmatic, but I had so much fun reading it and it's definitely a book I'm going to re-read in future as I think I'm going to take something new from it each time. I'm so glad I gave Carter (and myself) a second chance.

Review | A Portable Shelter by Kirsty Logan

A Portable Shelter

by Kirsty Logan

My Rating:

In their tiny, sea-beaten cottage on the north coast of Scotland, Liska and Ruth await the birth of their first child.

Each passes the time by telling the baby stories, trying to pass on the lessons they’ve learned: tales of circuses and stargazing, selkie fishermen and domestic werewolves, child-eating witches and broken-toothed dragons.

But they must keep their storytelling a secret from one another, as they’ve agreed to only ever tell the plain truth. So to cloak their tales, Ruth tells her stories when Liska is at work, to a background of shrieking seabirds; Liska tells hers when Ruth is asleep, with the lighthouse sweeping its steady beam through the window.

My appreciation and yearning for short story collections has been growing and growing over recent years, and after sadly being disappointed by Lucy Wood's Diving Belles earlier this year, a collection centered around Cornish folklore, I had hopes that A Portable Shelter, a collection this time centered around Scottish folklore, would satisfy my short story needs. Thankfully, it did!

As with all short story collections, there were some stories I liked a lot more than others, though there weren't any I disliked, but what I loved about this collection was how the stories were all stories within one over-arching story of two women, Liska and Ruth, who are expecting their first child and are telling the unborn baby stories that seem to have some kind of basis in reality as they feature people the women know or know of through other people. It's such a clever way to help one story flow into the next, and it really pulled me through the book from story to story.

There are tales of selkies, bears, dragons and people, each one playing with the blurred line between the mundane and the magical, how our lives are influenced by our stories and our stories are influenced by our lives. While the stories are true to an extent, I really enjoyed that we couldn't be sure how true they are - it was never clear if selkies and dragons actually exist in Ruth and Liska's Scotland or if they're metaphors for something else and I loved being able to decide that for myself.

Logan's writing is lyrical and melancholic, yet hopeful. Some of the stories were heart-wrenchingly sad, but many more of them left me with the feeling that things can, and do, get better - not necessarily straight away, in fact never, really, straight away, but eventually they do, and eventually is enough. I'm really looking forward to reading more of Logan's work, particularly her debut collection, The Rental Heart and Other Fairytales.

If you're a fan of fairy tales and folklore, or you're simply in the mood for a good short story collection, I definitely recommend picking this one up!

Should Disney's First Openly Gay Character Be Celebrated?

Disclaimer: Some mild spoilers for the Beauty and the Beast remake. Yes I do take Disney movies too seriously, no I’m not sorry for it. These are my own thoughts, views and opinions etc. – in no way am I presuming to speak for the LGBT+ community and I apologise in advance if I come across that way at any point in this discussion, it’s not my intention. This post was first posted on my other blog, which I'm considering moving over to permanently in future.

As Disney goes through its remake phase, just like it went through its sequel phase, it was only a matter of time before 1991’s Beauty and the Beast was given a fresh lick of live action paint.

News stories started asking if the fairy tale promotes bestiality or Stockholm syndrome as though this were the first time those questions had been asked – seriously, do they not realise how often fairy tales have been studied over the years? This isn’t a shock revelation – until it was revealed that LeFou, played by Josh Gad of Frozen fame, was going to be reimagined and portrayed as an LGBT+ character. Naturally, that was all the press could focus on and, in some ways, I can’t really blame them. LeFou’s hardly the hero of Beauty and the Beast, but that Disney were actually going to acknowledge someone as openly gay in one of their movies was a big deal – especially to the LGBT+ community who have been waiting for this kind of representation for years.

Now that I’ve seen the film (and I won’t talk about my thoughts on it here, because this  blog post would turn into a book) I can say that, yes, I certainly got the impression that LeFou is a member of the LGBT+ community, but at no point did he use the all important sentence: I’m gay (or however else he might choose to identify himself). This is a real shame considering the director of the remake, Bill Condon, is an openly gay man himself. If LeFou being gay was the director’s intention then why not just come out and say it? Would including a piece of dialogue like that take too much attention away from the main storyline?

Well, it shouldn’t. We need to start getting to a point where it’s not a shock for someone to reveal they aren’t heterosexual, if they’re comfortable enough to discuss their sexuality. If attention can be taken away from the main storyline by something like that then that’s the fault of the creators and of the audience, because people talking openly and safely about their sexuality in the media, whatever their sexuality is, isn’t going to seem normal until we make it normal, and we need more creators who are willing to take that risk – especially with media that is largely consumed by children. What better way to make children realise, from a young age, that people are deserving of respect regardless of who they choose to take to bed (or choose not to, in some cases).

So, should Disney be praised for their decision to make LeFou an LGBT+ character?

Honestly, I don’t think so. We don’t really know for certain that he is gay because he never tells us that he is. Sure, at the end of the movie there’s about two seconds of screen time when we see him dancing with another man and we’re led to believe his adoration of Gaston is more along the lines of wanting to be with him than like him, but this feels a little like the Dumbledore fiasco all over again. When Rowling revealed Dumbledore was gay there was an outcry from the LGBT+ community because it wasn’t blatantly said outright. At the time I wasn’t sure what people were expecting – was Dumbledore’s sexuality really revelant to Harry’s story? – but I don’t think we can ignore so many voices, from the very community Dumbledore is supposed to be a part of, telling us they weren’t satisfied with the years of only hinting at non-heterosexuality.

Whenever we watch a film or read a book, we’re programmed to automatically assume that everyone is heterosexual, and that’s why it’s important for creators to just come out and say when someone is gay or bisexual or pansexual or demisexual or asexual – sexuality is fluid and all members of every sexuality deserve to see themselves reflected in the stories they immerse themselves in. That’s why it was so important for LeFou to come out and say: ‘I’m gay.’

I can already hear people’s counter-arguments: ‘The story’s set in 18th century France, LeFou would have been executed for sodomy if he’d come out as gay’. Hm. Yeah, but I don’t remember many stories of 18th century French villages having their own royal families who they’ve forgotten about because an enchantress has turned their prince into a beast. It’s a bit like saying the sexual violence in Game of Thrones is historically accurate even though Westeros is entirely fictional and its own rules could apply. There are dragons in Game of Thrones, too, but no one argues that they’re historically inaccurate. This is exactly the same for our nameless French village; there’s no reason why this one village, with its own royal family they clearly decided not to send to the guillotine, couldn’t be a far more liberal place than the rest of the country.

Also, LeFou doesn’t necessarily have to come out to the people who could potentially cause him harm. Belle is portrayed as forward-thinking and you can guarantee the Beast knew someone in his circle of aristocratic friends who wasn’t straight, what’s important is that LeFou comes out to people who accept him in front of the audience. What’s important is that children see him not being used as comic relief, but as someone who questions the constraints of traditional masculinity and is rewarded for it.

On the one hand, I want to praise Disney for taking another step closer to one day having openly non-heterosexual protagonists, to encourage them to take further steps like this one, but on the other I find it difficult to praise a movie for having Disney’s first ‘openly gay character’ when we don’t know for certain that he is gay, and it’s certainly not openly if he is, and when we remember that Disney was founded in 1923. This is far too long a wait for representation that has come in the form of a side character who still isn’t really given the kind of voice that the LGBT+ community deserves.

My Non-Fiction TBR

I've really gotten into non-fiction this year, and though I've read more non-fiction this year than I ever thought I'd read there's still so much I'd like to read - the more I read, the more I discover! So, here are some of the non-fiction books I'd like to cross off my TBR soon.

The Creation of Anne Boleyn: In Search of the Tudors' Most Notorious Queen

by Susan Bordo

Part biography, part cultural history, The Creation of Anne Boleyn is a fascinating reconstruction of Anne's life and an illuminating look at her afterlife in the popular imagination.

Why is Anne so compelling? Why has she inspired such extreme reactions? What did she really even look like?! And perhaps the most provocative questions concern Anne's death more than her life. How could Henry order the execution of a once beloved wife? Drawing on scholarship and popular culture Bordo probes the complexities of one of history's most infamous relationships.

In her inimitable, straight-talking style Bordo dares to confront the established histories, stepping off the well-trodden paths of Tudoriana to expertly tease out the human being behind the myths.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Women Writers Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales

ed. by Kate Bernheimer

Fairy tales are one of the most enduring forms of literature, their plots retold and characters reimagined for centuries. In this elegant and thought-provoking collection of original essays, Kate Bernheimer brings together twenty-eight leading women writers to discuss how these stories helped shape their imaginations, their craft, and our culture. In poetic narratives, personal histories, and penetrating commentary, the assembled authors bare their soul and challenge received wisdom. Eclectic and wide-ranging, Mirror, Mirror on the Wall is essential reading for anyone who has ever been bewitched by the strange and fanciful realm of fairy tales.

Witches: A Tale of Sorcery, Scandal and Seduction

by Tracy Borman

September 1613.

In Belvoir Castle, the heir of one of England’s great noble families falls suddenly and dangerously ill. His body is ‘tormented’ with violent convulsions. Within a few short weeks he will suffer an excruciating death. Soon the whole family will be stricken with the same terrifying symptoms. The second son, the last male of the line, will not survive.

It is said witches are to blame. And so the Earl of Rutland’s sons will not be the last to die.

Witches traces the dramatic events which unfolded at one of England’s oldest and most spectacular castles four hundred years ago. The case is among those which constitute the European witch craze of the 15th-18th centuries, when suspected witches were burned, hanged, or tortured by the thousand. Like those other cases, it is a tale of superstition, the darkest limits of the human imagination and, ultimately, injustice – a reminder of how paranoia and hysteria can create an environment in which nonconformism spells death. But as Tracy Borman reveals here, it is not quite typical. The most powerful and Machiavellian figure of the Jacobean court had a vested interest in events at Belvoir.He would mastermind a conspiracy that has remained hidden for centuries.

The Bookshop Book

by Jen Campbell

Every bookshop has a story.

We’re not talking about rooms that are just full of books. We’re talking about bookshops in barns, disused factories, converted churches and underground car parks. Bookshops on boats, on buses, and in old run-down train stations. Fold-out bookshops, undercover bookshops, this-is-the-best-place-I’ve-ever-been-to-bookshops.

Meet Sarah and her Book Barge sailing across the sea to France; meet Sebastien, in Mongolia, who sells books to herders of the Altai mountains; meet the bookshop in Canada that’s invented the world’s first antiquarian book vending machine. 

And that’s just the beginning. 

From the oldest bookshop in the world, to the smallest you could imagine, The Bookshop Book examines the history of books, talks to authors about their favourite places, and looks at over three hundred weirdly wonderful bookshops across six continents (sadly, we’ve yet to build a bookshop down in the South Pole).

The Bookshop Book is a love letter to bookshops all around the world.

Losing Israel

by Jasmine Donahaye

During a phone call to her mother Jasmine Donahaye stumbled upon the collusion of her kibbutz family in the displacement of Palestinians in 1948 - and earlier, in the 1930s. She set out to learn the facts behind this revelation, and her discoveries challenged everything she thought she knew about the country and her family, transforming her understanding of Israel, and of herself.

In a moving and honest account that spans travel writing, nature writing and memoir, Losing Israel explores the powerful attachments people have to place and to contested national stories. Moving between Wales and Israel, and attempting to reconcile her conflicted feelings rooted in difficult family history and a love of Israel's birds, the author asks challenging questions about homeland and belonging, and the power of stories to shape a landscape.

Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation

by Judith Mackrell

Glamorized, mythologized and demonized - the women of the 1920s prefigured the 1960s in their determination to reinvent the way they lived. Flappers is in part a biography of that restless generation: starting with its first fashionable acts of rebellion just before the Great War, and continuing through to the end of the decade when the Wall Street crash signal led another cataclysmic world change. It focuses on six women who between them exemplified the range and daring of that generation’s spirit.

Diana Cooper, Nancy Cunard, Tallulah Bankhead, Zelda Fitzgerald, Josephine Baker and Tamara de Lempicka were far from typical flappers. Although they danced the Charleston, wore fashionable clothes and partied with the rest of their peers, they made themselves prominent among the artists, icons, and heroines of their age. Talented, reckless and willful, with personalities that transcended their class and background, they re-wrote their destinies in remarkable, entertaining and tragic ways. And between them they blazed the trail of the New Woman around the world.

Reading Lolita in Tehran

by Azar Nafisi

Every Thursday morning in a living room in Iran, over tea and pastries, eight women meet in secret to discuss forbidden works of Western literature. As they lose themselves in the worlds of Lolita, The Great Gatsby andPride and Prejudice, gradually they come to share their own stories, dreams and hopes with each other, and, for a few hours, taste freedom. Azar Nafisi's bestselling memoir is a moving, passionate testament to the transforming power of books, the magic of words and the search for beauty in life's darkest moments.

Are there any non-fiction books you'd like to read soon?

This Week in Books | 18/11/15

This week I'm joining in with Lipsy @ Lipsyy Lost & Found to talk about the books I've been reading recently!

NOW: Last night I decided to pick up The Falconer to see if I was in the mood to read it, and ended up reading the first hundred pages in an hour. It's not the best thing I've ever read, and I do fear there may be a dreaded love triangle, but it's a lot of fun! I haven't really read any books featuring fae and it's been a long time since I read a book set in Scotland, so I'm planning to finish this one soon. I'm also currently reading Eileen Pollack's memoir The Only Woman in the Room, and I'm enjoying it so far.

THEN: I finished, and really enjoyed, Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked at the weekend; it was very interesting to see how the story of Little Red Riding Hood has changed over the centuries, and how it's been used as both a moral tale and for advertising. I recommend it, especially to any fairy tale fans!

NEXT: The main reason I picked up The Falconer is because I received an eARC of the second book in the trilogy, The Vanishing Throne, from NetGalley. The Vanishing Throne is actually released tomorrow, but November slipped away from me before I could try and read it in advance. I'm hoping to finish The Falconer very soon, though, and then I'll jump straight into this one and review them both! Also you should all check out Elizabeth May's Twitter account. It's brilliant.

Review | Winter by Marissa Meyer

Winter

by Marissa Meyer

My Rating: 

Princess Winter is admired by the Lunar people for her grace and kindness, and despite the scars that mar her face, her beauty is said to be even more breathtaking than that of her stepmother, Queen Levana.

Winter despises her stepmother, and knows Levana won’t approve of her feelings for her childhood friend–the handsome palace guard, Jacin. But Winter isn’t as weak as Levana believes her to be and she’s been undermining her stepmother’s wishes for years. Together with the cyborg mechanic, Cinder, and her allies, Winter might even have the power to launch a revolution and win a war that’s been raging for far too long.

Can Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter defeat Levana and find their happily ever afters?

Check out my reviews of Cinder, Scarlet, Cress and Fairest!

This review will be spoiler free, but I recommend you not reading this if you haven't already read the other books in the series!

It's here! My most anticipated read of 2015 is here! Anyone who's been following my blog for a while - and anyone who knows me in person - will know that I adore The Lunar Chronicles; it's up there with some of my favourite series, tucked in snugly beside Harry Potter, and now that it's come to an end I'm at a bit of a loss. I at least have the release of Stars Above to look forward to next year!

Winter takes place entirely on the moon, and follows Cinder and co. as they attempt to overthrow Levana and liberate her people. Along the way they find an ally in Levana's beautiful stepdaughter, Winter, whose refusal to use her lunar gift has been nudging her towards insanity since her childhood.

What a conclusion. At 800+ pages, Marissa Meyer had a lot to do in this final book; not only did she have to tackle the entirety of her Snow White retelling, but she also had to wrap everything else up, so I'm not surprised it ended up being as long as it is. I was quite happy with that, though - the more scenes set in this world the better, because I love these characters!

In fact the scenes in which Cinder and her group were together were my favourites, and have always been my favourites; I adore Cinder's friendship with Thorne and Iko, and it was nice to see more of Kai, too. We certainly saw quite a bit of him in Cress, but it was nice to see him finally able to directly help them out.

I was really looking forward to meeting Winter after the glimpses we got of her in Cress and Fairest, and I loved that Marissa Meyer didn't try to tone down her crazy. This poor girl is losing it - seriously losing it - but she's also very endearing, and quite cheeky. Yet again, Meyer has presented us with another heroine who feels entirely different from the other three, and another completely different romantic relationship. Jacin was a lot more likeable in this book than he was in Cress, though sometimes I did find his and Winter's relationship a little annoying; I could completely understand the two of them wanting to keep each other safe, but sometimes they were willing to risk the lives of literally thousands of other people if it meant the other was okay. Yeah, I guess we could argue it's romantic, but considering they're currently living on a planet where the ruler is tyrannical and corrupt it was also slightly selfish. I just wanted the two of them to think outside of each other a little more!

One of the relationships I really enjoyed was the friendship that developed between Scarlet and Winter. The two of them made for a pretty great duo, and given how much Jacin coddles Winter I think she needs someone like Scarlet. I would have liked to have seen a few more scenes between her and Cinder, though, given their close friendship when they were children.

Thorne and Cress are as adorable as usual - I love Thorne, and I definitely have a softspot for Cress - but what surprised me most was how much more I enjoyed Scarlet and Wolf's relationship in this book. I don't dislike either of them, but Scarlet is my least favourite book in the series because there's something quite instalove-y about their relationship and I really don't like instalove. In this book, though, I believed their relationship a lot more, and I looked forward to reading scenes that involved the two of them. In fact I really, really enjoyed Wolf's journey in this book, and I think Meyer was quite brave in the decisions she made regarding him.

But that's enough about the characters - however much I love them - what about the story itself?

Well, first of all I have to say I loved how Meyer incorporated the story of Snow White into a sci-fi setting. As always, there were so many tips of the hat to the original tale; the poison comb, the poison apple, the number seven. Meyer fills every single one of her books with little fairy tale Easter eggs, and I think they'll make rereading these books in future a joy - I feel as though I'll notice something new each time I read them.

I don't think Winter was perfect, but the last book in a series is always so difficult to get right. I don't think there was anything wrong with the book, but there were a few little bits here and there that I think could have been improved just a little; sometimes Cinder didn't sound like Cinder anymore, she sounded like a lost princess when I wanted her to sound like the mechanic from New Beijing. I also felt as though the final battle between her and Levana was ever so slightly underwhelming, but it's important to note that I didn't dislike the book - I think you can tell from my rating that I didn't dislike it at all.

Ultimately I think Meyer did a fantastic job of tying everything up and linking everything together. Sometimes Cinder made dumb decisions, and the group were pulled apart and pushed back together and hurt and healed and all sorts, but I wouldn't expect a revolution to go smoothly. I was pleased to see that Meyer didn't make it easy for them!

I love this world and these characters so much, they have a very special place in my heart, and I'm going to feel lost without them. Bring on Stars Above!

This Week in Books | 11/11/15

This week I'm joining in with Lipsy @ Lipsyy Lost & Found to talk about the books I've been reading recently!

Now: My copy of Winter arrived early and I'm so excited! I preordered my copy of Winter from The Book Depository - I was having trouble finding the hardback edition anywhere else, and I like using TBD - but I wasn't expecting to get it on time; last year I preordered Cress through TBD and it was almost a week late, so you can imagine how pleased I was to receive an email that it had been dispatched a week before the release date, only for it to turn up two days later! It's been killing me that I haven't been able to just stay at home and read constantly, but I'm off work today so I'm determined to read it, even though finishing this series is going to break my heart.

Then: I started Demon Road last month, it was one of the books on my Halloween TBR, but I ended up having to set it aside so I could read Sugar Hall for a read-a-long with one of my colleagues. I finally picked it back up and finished it one sitting, and I enjoyed it! I didn't love it, but I liked it a lot - look out for my review later this week!

Next: After Winter, assuming I don't end up in a sobbing book hangover, I'd like to finish Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Mortality and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale which I started, and was really enjoying, before Winter arrived. I've mentioned before that I've been really getting into non-fiction this year, and this is one of a few non-fiction titles I'd like to cross off my TBR before the end of the year.

What have you been reading recently?

M is for Meyer | Blogging from A to Z

Cinder
by Marissa Meyer

When I first heard of Cinder I thought it sounded like a lot of fun, and I thought reading it would be a lot of fun. Thankfully, I was right, but I had no idea The Lunar Chronicles were going to end up becoming one of my all time favourite series. I love a good fairy tale retelling, but they can be hard to do well; what Meyer has managed to do is take these old stories and breathe new life into them - they're just so original!

This series is also fantastic in terms of its diversity. Throughout the series so far our settings have included China, France, Africa and the moon, we have four leading ladies - all of whom are completely different ladies, meaning there's a heroine for everyone, but who don't compete against each other in any way - and we have an array of characters from all different races and cultures. Our Cinderella has prosthetic limbs and our Prince Charming's Chinese - I can't remember the last time I came across a retelling with so much diversity.

I love this series so much, and while I can't wait to get my hands on Winter I also really don't want this series to end.

Review | The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman

The Sleeper and the Spindle

by Neil Gaiman

My Rating: 

On the eve of her wedding, a young queen sets out to rescue a princess from an enchantment. She casts aside her fine wedding clothes, takes her chain mail and her sword and follows her brave dwarf retainers into the tunnels under the mountain towards the sleeping kingdom. This queen will decide her own future – and the princess who needs rescuing is not quite what she seems.

Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell are like the Tim Burton and Johnny Depp of the literary world. Everything they produce is wonderfully weird and a tad creepy, and The Sleeper and the Spindle is no different.

Now I'll admit the main reason I picked this up is that stunning cover, which the picture above does no real justice. Seriously if you find this book in your local bookstore just pick it up and try not to buy it. I dare you.

Gaiman's prose is lovely and peculiar, and accompanied by Riddell's illustrations the entire story comes to life; reading this was like going back to my childhood and reading the fairy tales I read then, each one beautifully illustrated with stunning princesses and ghastly crones. The plot itself I loved. I don't think it spoils anything if I say the main protagonist of this tale is Snow White, and it was great to see a Snow White who'd already defeated her stepmother, a Snow White who was already Queen and whose people were in need of her help.

Having said that, I guessed what was coming at the end which is the main reason I didn't give this story a full 5 stars. I was hoping to be completely surprised as so many other readers had mentioned the big twist at the end, but it wasn't quite twisty enough. I still thoroughly enjoyed the read, though.

If you're a lover of fairy tales then this is a must read for you, and even though the story is included in Gaiman's latest short story collection, Trigger Warning, I highly recommend getting your hands on this gorgeous illustrated edition. If you're looking for an LGBT fairy tale, however, you will be disappointed. I've seen quite a few people describing this as an LGBT retelling and it's really not, so if that's the main reason you want to check this story out I'm afraid it won't meet your expectations.

But as I said this is a beautiful story, and I'm so glad to have this beautiful book on my shelf.