Fierce Fairytales: Poems and Stories to Stir Your Soul

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Right from that captivating cover, this book has had my attention and when I finally had the opportunity to participate in Read-India-Thon this week, I decided it was finally time to read it. I think there is probably something here for everyone; but unfortunately you have to navigate a lot of obnoxious, in your face rhetoric to find it. Nikita Gill has taken classic fairytales, and in these she has masterfully combined the subjects of empowerment, love, feminism, abuse and mental illness.

This beautiful edition is highlighted throughout with illustrations to accompany these incredible stories. What if I told you, the step sisters struggled with insecurities, body image issues and were trying to keep up with societal standards of perfection and that jealousy is not a inherent trait?

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Most of these poems read like they were ripped from a Tumblr post or Twitter thread on empowerment and self-love. Though the illustrations are gorgeous and there’s a couple of impactful poems/stories in there, I was ultimately unmoved and unimpressed with like, 95% of it. Some phrases and ideas are repeated in a few of the works, which I may not have noticed as much if I didn’t read the collection together. Gill needed an editor or publisher that spoke up about how any boy/man that picks up her book is likely to be put off by the end.Despite having fallen out of love with poetry years ago, I had such a good feeling about this book when I first picked it up. The poems and stories are cleverly written, imagining "what if" the princesses in the stories knew they could rely on themselves instead of waiting to be rescued. Instead, lines blur between heroes and villains and you'll meet brave princesses, a new kind of wolf lurking in the concrete jungle and a courageous Gretel who can bring down monsters on her own. They read less like important mantras to tie together the collection and more like Gill couldn’t find different ways to say the same thing.

This book struck so many chords with me that I never expected going in, and as cliche as it sounds, I found things I never realised I was looking for within these pages. Towards the end of the book I began to wonder if the author had run out of fairytales and was simply fuelled by anger. I loved how the two pieces went together for each poem and story as it gave a new level to my reading experience. The idea is good, the illustrations gorgeous; but the last 1/3 of the collection is just a big giant bash against men with no real fairytale link at all.I thought the author brought all these messages to us in a very accessible way, even for poetry noobs like me, which is what makes this so special. I would have cherished it as a child just for how pretty it is; even if I didn't like all the stories. Menuda preciosidad de libro y de poemas; desde la primera página, quedé absolutamente cautivada por la forma en que tiene la autora de transmitir tanto sentimiento, a través de sus relatos, tanto los originales como aquellos que reinterpretan los cuentos de hadas que todos conocemos, como el de Caperucita Roja, Hansel y Gretel, o Peter Pan. At one point I felt like maybe Gill was building a new lesbian army of teens to take over the world; that's how all out awful a lot of the last poems/stories were. 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.

I have gotten good at distracting myself, calming myself down, or otherwise finding a way to not pass-out or show external signs of any given panic attack I may be having. Was pretty good until halfway through when I noticed it kept recycling its own ideas over and over again. And now she knew how important it is for a woman to be beautiful, as it is the only currency she truly had in this world, she became even more bitter.For readers who enjoyed Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls, this empowering collection of stories, poems and beautiful hand-drawn illustrations gives Once Upon a Time a much-needed modern makeover. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.