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Book Review: Beasts and Beauty: Dangerous Tales by Soman Chainani, illustrated by Julia Iredale

cover art for Beasts and Beauty: Dangerous Tales by Sonan Chainani

Beasts and Beauty: Dangerous Tales by Soman Chainani, illustrated by Julia Iredale

HarperCollins Children’s Books, 2021

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0062652638

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook ( Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com )

 

In Beasts and Beauty: Dangerous Tales, Soman Chainani brings us tales so sharp they cut, with teen protagonists who seize their agency, and subversive, unexpected re-visionings of 12 familiar stories.

The standout story in this collection for me is “Bluebeard”, a lush and bleeding horror story. Chainani has altered the story so that instead of courting a wife, Bluebeard chooses boys from an orphanage as his victims. Unfortunately for him, one boy, Pietro, is wise to what’s going on.

“Bluebeard” is just one of many excellent stories. Chainani’s version of “Red Riding Hood” would do Shirley Jackson proud, with its rejection of conformity and tradition.  “Hansel and Gretel” set in India, is very different from the original tale, although you can clearly see its roots.  This was a beautifully done variation with a very satisfying ending, if you’ve ever wanted the stepmother to get her comeuppance.  “Cinderella” is an entertaining story where a girl in love with the prince, who has been hexed into a mouse, convinces Cinderella to go to the ball and take her along. The story definitely does not go where you think it will! “Snow White” takes on racism with an unusual reversal, and disrupts the structure of fairytale narrative. “Beauty and the Beast” also addresses racism and classism in its commentary on seeing past appearances, with a prickly, bookish, Chinese “Beauty”.  “Sleeping Beauty” is genderswapped, with lyrical, gorgeous writing threaded with horror. The relationships in this were particularly troubling as Chainani was not clear on the issue of consent or its lack that is central to Sleeping Beauty stories.

Chainani does a good job taking a traditional tale and giving it just a little bit of a twist, as well. Rapunzel uses her brain instead of her hair to get what she wants; Jack grows a beanstalk hoping to find his missing father at the top; the sea witch lectures the Little Mermaid on the folly of giving up a long life and self-respect for the possibility of love.  Other stories include “Rumplestiltskin” and “Peter Pan”.  Overall, it’s a great collection that pays a creative homage to traditional stories.  Art by Julia Iredale throughout, including full-page color illustrations, complements the stories perfectly as it’s integrated into the design of the book.

Teens who grew up reading Adam Gidwitz, the Sisters Grimm, or Chainani’s School for Good and Evil series, or who enjoy fairytale adaptations such as those by Anna-Marie Macklemore (Blanca & Roja)  Emily Whitten (For The Wolf) and Emma Donoghue (Kissing the Witch) should enjoy this collection. Highly recommended for ages 10+.

 

 

Posted on October 26, 2021 by , Reply

Women in Horror Month: Book Review: Children of Chicago by Cynthia Pelayo

cover art for Children of Chicago by Cynthia Pelayo

( Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com )

Children of Chicago by Cynthia Pelayo

Agora Books, 2021

ISBN: ISBN-10 : 1951709209

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition (pre-order: release date March 9, 2021)

 

 

The daughter of a Chicago policeman, Detective Lauren Medina has known the terrible trauma and tragedy of her city ever since the unsolved murder of her sister when they were both children. She is also a true believer in the power of the darkest fairytales to infiltrate ordinary lives. When someone begins tagging multiple spots in the city with the name “Pied Piper”, Lauren immediately realizes that the number of dead children is about to increase dramatically. Her evidence is a very old copy of Grimm’s fairytales she read as a child, a missing page from that book, and a magic rhyme that can call the Piper to get rid of any chosen victim.

 

Cynthia Pelayo is a master of her craft. In Children of Chicago, she creates a strong sense of place with brief descriptions of the city’s landmarks and its violent history. The familiarity of this location in the popular imagination heightens the supernatural effect of the fairytales on past and present sins that are destroying any hope of a better future through or for the community’s children. Within this cityscape, the mysterious Pied Piper, wearing a black suit and hat, appears frequently to a group of children who owe him for the horrible deeds they have requested him to perform. When he wants to, he transforms into a terrifying, bloody monster, hungry to collect his fees in human flesh. Pelayo moves expertly between human events and nightmarish fantasy suggesting that the two are not separate and that their intersection is a demonic one.

 

Part mystery, part fairytale, part psychological crime thriller, Children of Chicago will make you want to re-read fairytales as you wonder about their origins (based on true stories?) and try to figure out what Detective Medina really knows and how.  Best of all, by the climax of the book, like the Piper’s future victims, you’ll be looking into the shadows with a shiver hoping this scary tale is simply very good horror fiction.

Highly Recommended

Reviewed by Nova Hadley

Posted on February 13, 2021 by , Reply

Women in Horror Month: Book Review: A Collection of Dreamscapes by Christina Sng

cover art for A Collection of Dreamscapes by Christina Sng

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A Collection of Dreamscapes by Christina Sng

Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-947879-17-1

Available: Paperback, Kindle

 

Christina Sng’s A Collection of Dreamscapes is a deceptive title for dark and subversive poems about myths and fairytales. Sng takes Emily Dickinson’s advice to “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” and not only slants it, but twists it into a more horrible truth than she found in the original stories. The poems are divided into five sections, with titles for the first three that are, again, deceptive. We begin with “The Love Song of Allegra”, about the exploits of a viciously murderous warrior, and recognize childhood favorites in “Fairy Tales”, involving female victims who choose revenge. Next, “All the Monsters in the World” are overcome by strong women who refuse to give up. The horror increases and becomes more explicitly described in the section called “The Capacity of Violence” and concludes with glimpses of hope in “Myths and Dreamscapes.”

 

The opening poems in this collection create a mythological backdrop for the horror heroines of the fairytales. However, these tales combined with predictable new narratives make the second section feel longer than it needs to be. The third and fourth sections include the most important poems of the book in terms of revealing the world’s horrors. Although the reality of pervasive evil, the idea that no place is completely safe, and the thought that we can never really know a person’s deepest darkness until it is too late are truths spun into many a story and poem, Sng brings them to greater heights through artistry. The speakers in these poems deny the existence of monsters while actually being or becoming monsters. It seems the dividing line is in the doing: sewing body parts together; performing a lobotomy; strangling the man who left you, an infant, to die in the forest. After all of the violence, the final poems suggest that there could be a fresh start, a new way, an end to the horror, but that reaching that point will also involve violence and possible death. The question remains whether the future is just as much a cruel myth or terrifying fairytale as what we have already experienced. Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Nova Hadley

Posted on February 8, 2021 by , Reply
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