Fairy Tale Retellings 2022 Reading Challenge

Welcome to the Fairy Tale Retellings 2022 Reading Challenge! As regular readers will know, I love a fairy tale retelling, and I generally try to read them throughout the year, and track what I've read. However, I didn't do very well last year, reading just two, and want to put more effort into picking up these kinds of stories I love in 2022. Inspired by some other reading challenges I've seen recently, I've decided to create my own!

As a mood reader, I'm not the kind of person who sees reading challenges as actual challenges, books I must read, but more of a tick box exercise where I can be more aware of what I'm reading. The challenges I generally take part tend to be more "read X amount of Z books," which isn't really any different than tracking what I read. But as I didn't do so well with reading fairy tale retellings last year, this year I've decided not only for this challenge to be actually be a challenge I try to achieve, but to also set prompts make it more fun, and have me reaching for some different stories. And thought others might be interested, too.

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Most Anticipated 2021 Retellings

As regular readers will know, I'm a huge fan of retellings, and I've recently discovered a few coming out this year that I'm super excited about.

I know, I know; it's April, and we're over a quarter of the way into the year, so I'm quite late in writing this post. But hopefully there'll be a few titles to add to your TBR here, so you'll forgive my lateness. On with the list!

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Ad: Titles with an asterisk (*) were gifted to me by the publisher for the purposes of providing an honest review.

Links with a circumflex (^) are Ad: Affiliate Links, which means if you make a purchase through them, I'll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

My Most Anticipated Retellings From Jan - June 2020

It's now 2020, it's a brand New Year! And you know what that means? A year chock full of brand new books is ahead of us! And as regular readers will know, what I am most looking forward to is all the retellings! I do adore a good retelling! So here are the retellings I'm most anticipating in the first half of this year!

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My Most Anticipated Retellings From July - Dec 2019

My Most Anticipated YA Retellings From July - Dec 2019

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Titles marked with an asterisk (*) were gifted to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Can you believe it's July already, and half the year has already gone? What is going on?! Time is moving so fast! But seeing as it's July, it's time to share my most anticipated retellings for the second half of 2019! There are a mix of genres and of age categories, but there's something for everyone!

Wilder Girls by Rory Power
Retelling of Lord of the Flies by William Golding - published 9th July 2019.

It's been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine. Since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty's life out from under her.

It started slow. First the teachers died one by one. Then it began to infect the students, turning their bodies strange and foreign. Now, cut off from the rest of the world and left to fend for themselves on their island home, the girls don't dare wander outside the school's fence, where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure they were promised as the Tox seeps into everything.

But when Byatt goes missing, Hetty will do anything to find her, even if it means breaking quarantine and braving the horrors that lie beyond the fence. And when she does, Hetty learns that there's more to their story, to their life at Raxter, than she could have ever thought true. From Goodreads.

Goodreads

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Sapphic Retellings

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Titles marked with an asterisk (*) were gifted to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I'm wanting to try and read more f/f novels this year, whether it's bi rep or lesbian rep. When I stumbled across Robbergirl by S. T. Gibson, and realised it was f/f, I decided I definitely wanted to read more sapphic retellings, so I put a call out on Twitter, and Twitter delivered! I ended up with so many recommendations, I thought I would share them with you guys. So this least features those I already knew about, and those that were recommended to me, with credit given. Some are traditionally published, some published by indies, and some self-published, and are either YA or adult. None are (or shouldn't be) erotica, as that's not what I'm personally interested in, but you can put your own call out on Twitter, and I'm sure people can give you all the recs!

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What Do We Want From Retellings? Part 2

Ad: Titles with an asterisk (*) were gifted to me by the publisher for the purpose of an honest review.

Today, I am back to continue with my What Do We Want From Retellings? discussion, after quite a long wait. If you haven't yet read it, do check out What Do We Want From Retellings? Part 2, where I discussed what I want from straight retellings and reimaginings. Today, I'll be talking about prequels and sequels, different POVs, and thematic retellings.

Prequels and Sequels

Prequel and sequel retellings are stories set before or after the original story. Prequels, obviously, generally show us an author's idea of what may have led to the events of the original story, and from what I've seen, more often than not, they tend to be from the perspective of the villians, giving us their origin story - I'll talk more about these when I discuss different POVs. And prequels show what might happen after the original story, continuing it on to see what could happen next. There has been quite a slew sequels published recently in the UK when it comes to children's classics, like Five Children on the Western Front by Kate Saunders and Four Children and It by Jacqueline Wilson, sequels to Five Children and It by E. Nesbit, and Return to the Secret Garden by Holly Webb, a sequel to The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, among others, but generally for younger readers.

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My Most Anticipated YA Retellings From Jan - June 2019

2018 is drawing to a close, and people are starting to share their lists of 2019 books they're looking forward to, and I'm joining in! Regular readers will know what a huge fan of retellings I am, so today I'm sharing with you the retellings I'm looking forward to in the first half of the year. There are a few others I know of, either in the latter half or the year, or without specific release dates yet, so I'm sure there will be another post in six months time.

96 Words for Love by Rachel Roy & Ava Dash
Retelling of the Indian legend of Shakuntala and Dushyanta - published 15th Jan 2019.

A modern retelling of a classic Indian legend, 96 Words for Love is a coming-of-age story.

Ever since her acceptance to UCLA, 17-year-old Raya Liston has been quietly freaking out. She feels simultaneously lost and trapped by a future already mapped out for her.

Then her beloved grandmother dies, and Raya jumps at the chance to spend her last free summer at the ashram in India where her grandmother met and fell in love with her grandfather. Raya hopes to find her center and her true path. But she didn't expect to fall in love... with a country of beautiful contradictions, her fiercely loyal cousin, a local girl with a passion for reading, and a boy who teaches her that in Sanskrit, there are 96 different ways to say the word "love." From Goodreads.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Retellings from the Villains' Perspective

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme run by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic is Villains.
I've decided to look at retellings from the perspective of the original stories' villains! Here we have origin prequel stories and sequels! The first three I've read, the rest are either on my TBR pile or on my wishlist!

Fairest by Marissa Meyer


Fairest is a prequel story to The Lunar Chronicles, giving us the origin story of the Evil Queen that is Queen Levana - one of the most incredible villains I've ever read. Queen Levana is despicable and cruel and enjoys the torment of others. And yet, there's a reason why she is the way she is. Fairest tells us her story, what she had to go through, and the maltreatment she herself received at the hands of her older sister. The only way Levana could free herself was to destroy everyone else, and she became a monster. With Fairest, we come to understand and sympathise with Levana, but not to the point where we find her actions justifiable. But it's an incredible story, a wonderful insight, and Queen Levana is a fantastic villian! Just FYI, if you haven't read The Lunar Chronicles, don't start with this one! Read the first three books first, then Fairest. It will spoil too much to read this first.

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What Do We Want From Retellings? Part 1

Inspired by Julia Ember's Once Upon a Retelling interview for her latest novel, The Navigator's Touch, I wanted to discuss today what we want from retellings. But firstly, lets talk about why we're drawn to retellings in the first place.

For me, it's the idea of authors taking a story we know, maybe a story we love, and creating something original. It's the familiar with the new. How an author can rework or expand on a known story and give you something full of surprises, twists, and elements that will make you think or look at the story or the characters in a different way. I know where the story is going, but I don't know how it will get there there.

And that's how I think of original stories and retellings; as a journey. The original story goes from A to Z, with landmarks B, C, D, etc. - specific well known elements that make up the story - along the way. The original story takes the straightest route, but the retelling takes a longer, more winding route; still hitting all the landmarks, but taking you a different way.

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The Little Mermaid and Its Retellings

Painting of a mermaid I bought in in Denmark, where the Hans Christian Andersen is from.
My favourite fairy tale is The Little Mermaid. I was first drawn to the Disney movie as a child because Ariel had red hair like me, got to swim with all the fish - I love fish - and could sing. I knew Hans Christian Andersen had written the original story, and I knew that it differed quite a bit from the Disney version; that the prince didn't love the mermaid, that her sisters gave her a knife from the sea witch to kill the prince with, and that she instead killed herself. But it wasn't until I was a teenager that I actually read the original story, and I fell even more in love with The Little Mermaid. The tragedy of the story is what appealed to me most, how heartbreaking it is; this poor little mermaid who gave up everything for a chance at happiness, and ended up dying instead. There's something I've always found quite beautiful about a tragic story.

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