A review by tehani
Grim by Ellen Hopkins, Julie Kagawa, Amanda Hocking
3.0
I'm a fan of fairytale reworkings, especially when they subvert and play with the tropes, and there were quite a few in this collection that I thought were unusual and well done. However, there were also a good portion that felt like retellings rather than reworkings, and a couple that I was actively cross I had wasted my time reading them, which has dropped this book's star rating for me.
Those I particularly enjoyed were "Better" by Shaun David Hutchinson, "Thinner than Water" by Saundra Mitchell (though it's not a pleasant piece!), "Figment" by Jeri Smith-Ready and "Beast/Beast" by Tessa Gratton. I also quite liked "Before the rose bloomed…" by Ellen Hopkins, but my reading was a bit spoiled by the formatting of the verse in my Kindle-purchased version.
I think your mileage may vary on some of these, particularly in terms of how familiar you are with the source material of each work. Some are more obvious than others (and that wasn't necessarily a bad or good thing in different pieces!) and I liked there was some diversity of both authors and characters within the pieces. In all, not my favourite anthology of fairytales but certainly readable, with enough good stories to keep me engaged.
Those I particularly enjoyed were "Better" by Shaun David Hutchinson, "Thinner than Water" by Saundra Mitchell (though it's not a pleasant piece!), "Figment" by Jeri Smith-Ready and "Beast/Beast" by Tessa Gratton. I also quite liked "Before the rose bloomed…" by Ellen Hopkins, but my reading was a bit spoiled by the formatting of the verse in my Kindle-purchased version.
I think your mileage may vary on some of these, particularly in terms of how familiar you are with the source material of each work. Some are more obvious than others (and that wasn't necessarily a bad or good thing in different pieces!) and I liked there was some diversity of both authors and characters within the pieces. In all, not my favourite anthology of fairytales but certainly readable, with enough good stories to keep me engaged.