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A review by library_ann
Faraway: Fairy Tales for the Here and Now by Gayle Forman, Nic Stone, Soman Chainani, Rainbow Rowell, Ken Liu
3.0
A weird collection of retellings. I really only liked the first story ("The Prince and the Troll" by Rainbow Rowell). The strange growing friendship of the two main characters was fun to watch, until it wasn't fun anymore at the end.
"Hazel and Grey" was upsetting and oddly passive, like here we are now, and here's what Grey did previously to set us up for this position that we're in. Like, why not show us what Grey is doing, and give us the sense of danger and peril.
"The Princess Game" also had an ick factor, but was easy to solve.
"The Cleaners" had an interesting premise -- when humans touch things, they leave a residue that carries their emotions and mental state, which people who subsequently touch the things can feel -- so everyone starts wearing gloves when they can, and avoids too much touching (but apparently they don't stop buying random knick-knacks and what-nots to limit the things they leave residue on). I could not figure out which fairy tale this was retelling though.
I liked "The Wickeds" too, for being an interesting approach to the evil stepmother trope, and then the twist at the end ...
"Hazel and Grey" was upsetting and oddly passive, like here we are now, and here's what Grey did previously to set us up for this position that we're in. Like, why not show us what Grey is doing, and give us the sense of danger and peril.
"The Princess Game" also had an ick factor, but was easy to solve.
"The Cleaners" had an interesting premise -- when humans touch things, they leave a residue that carries their emotions and mental state, which people who subsequently touch the things can feel -- so everyone starts wearing gloves when they can, and avoids too much touching (but apparently they don't stop buying random knick-knacks and what-nots to limit the things they leave residue on). I could not figure out which fairy tale this was retelling though.
I liked "The Wickeds" too, for being an interesting approach to the evil stepmother trope, and then the twist at the end ...