I read Jane Yolen as a child and an adult, so I was excited to see new stories from her but most of these have been published before or seemed familar. Fairy tale adaptions can either feel timeless or can quickly feel trite or out of date. Sadly, while there were some wonderful stories, many of them felt trite or did not add anything to the original. I also actually wish the notes on each story were not there as they actually managed to take away from the stories and the poetry would have been better interspersed between the stories. In the end, it felt odd going from stories of rape to childhood stories and back again. Fairytales are dark but the whiplash was unexpected. The most redeeming part for me was the nostalgia factor as I grew up reading Yolen.

DNF - After multiple tries I have come to find I do not like the genre of fairytale rewriting. I never was a big fan of fairytales to begin with but thought rewrites would change that fact. However, it has not. I don't post DNFs unless I find something completely disturbing about it. This is not the case with HTFAFT. I gave it 3 stars since it is a lesson I've learned about personal preference for a genre not the quality of the book itself.

Fairy tales were my first love. In the house where I grew up there was a specific bookshelf dedicated to fairy tales from all over the world. African, Hebrew, Asian or Native American fairy tales, all were collected there and I just loved opening those books and entering a different, more magical world. I have fallen in love repeatedly with fairy tales in different guises, whether it is through novel adaptations or through re-workings. And now this has led me to Jane Yolen's How to Fracture a Fairy Tale. Thanks to Tachyon Publications and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
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I have to admit I hadn't heard of Jane Yolen before this collection. Just how I have managed to miss her will remain a mystery but I was immediately drawn to How to Fracture a Fairy Tale on its premise alone. I have always thought of fairy tales as a mirror. They reflect our reality but twist it ever so slightly, thereby revealing deeper truths we can't see in our own lives. Sometimes the morals of these fairy tales are very clear, sometimes fairy tales have been so twisted to make them more "appropriate" that hardly anything remains of them. Authors like Jane Yolen, or for example Angela Carter, take these tales we all think we know so well, and fracture them. Suddenly the mirror shows us all kinds of other sides we had never considered. Suddenly the Beauty and the Beast tale has a different meaning, and suddenly Snow White isn't half as innocent as she seemed. This is how fairy tales continue to have meaning in different ages and for different people. Also, fractured fairy tales are very often bad ass!

'With their basis in well-known fairy tales, ;legends, and myths, the stories contained here are familiar, but only to a point. Some have been altered in ways that are subtle, yet profound. others have been smashed into pieces and glued back together. They have been reimagined, reworked, and, now, retold.
The result?
Poetry. Wishes. Heartache. Dreams.'
Thus describes Marissa Meyer the fairy tales in How to Fracture a Fairy Tale and I couldn't agree more. Each story in this collection feels oddly familiar, as if you've met it before, and yet it shows itself to be a completely different creature than you'd thought. 'Snow in Summer' is a modern take on the Snow White tale where our heroine sees the old lady for who she is.'The Moon Ribbon' is a magical take on the Cinderella story that feels both mystical and slightly horrifying. 'Happy Dens or A Day in the Old Wolves' home' tells us not to trust blindly in the stories handed down to us, especially if they're about wolves. One of my favourite, although that is hardly the right word, stories in How to Fracture a Fairy Tale is 'Granny Rumple'. Yolen uses the Rumpelstiltskin story to do many difficult things. She shows us how stories are used to explain history, how prejudices underlie stereotypes, and how pervasive anti-antisemitism is. In stories like 'The Foxwife' and 'One Ox, Two Ox, Three Ox, and the Dragon King' Yolen explores Asian fairy tales, while 'Sun/Flight' is a fascinating take on the tale of Icarus. 'Allerleirauh' is a truly tragic tale and 'Wrestling with Angels' made me want to cry. How to Fracture a Fairy Tale has something for everyone and shows Yolen's range. The tales are followed by a 'Notes and Poems' section, with each tale linked to a poem and explanation. Usually this doesn't really do much for me, but I enjoyed seeing Yolen combine story themes across prose and poetry, especially because she seems delightful in her Notes!

Jane Yolen is an icon of fantasy writing, as I realized once I started reading. She has written and edited hundreds of novels and stories throughout her long career. In How to Fracture a Fairy Tale Yolen employs all the necessary tools to keep readers engaged. Her stories are funny, outrageous, epic, dreamy, and everything in between. Yolen moves almost seamlessly between these different atmospheres and each story is solid in its own right. Yolen writes with joy and that joy infects the reader as well. In a number of stories Yolen uses her own family history and Jewish heritage to fracture the tales. Although that doesn't make them any easier to read, it does show just how intrinsic fairy tales are. They are elemental, in a way. We all grow up with stories and they are intensely personal and widely universal all at once. In each story in How to Fracture a Fairy Tale Yolen's love for stories comes through and that is what kept me exploring each new story. Not all of the stories necessarily clicked for me, perhaps it showed me a fracture I wasn't interested in seeing. But each story nonetheless taught me something interesting about its foundation story, let me look at these characters and themes anew.

I really enjoyed the wide variety of stories in How to Fracture a Fairy Tale. Yolen is a pro and handles each in such a way it shines anew. Some of the stories are cheeky fun, the others are beautifully tragic. In the end, there is a story for everyone in this collection. I am now off to explore Yolen's other work. Apparently there are books about wizards!

A wonderful collection that had me turning the pages long after I should have been asleep! I was enchanted from page one! This will definitely be on the reread worthy shelf!

Jane Yolen is a classic children's author with a flair for "fractures", what she considers retelling. This is a book of short stories or fables, some modernized and some re-worked into retellings from another character's perspective. While not all are amazing, the compilation on a whole is well worth the time, as well as the introduction and Yolen's own descriptions of how to "fracture" a tale.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

This is a book of short stories written by Jane Yolen. Each short story is a retelling of a fairy tale. At the end of the book Yolen also describes her thought processes and influences behind each story.

My thoughts:

What I liked most about this book was the variety. There were stories that I loved and stories that I didn’t care too much about. There were stories that were magical and stories that were bland. There were stories that were beautiful and stories that were gross. There were stories that were funny and stories that were sad.

The stories were influenced by a variety of cultures including but not limited to Native American, Japanese, Chinese, Jewish, American, French, Scottish.

Overall, I am really glad I took the time to read this anthology. I generally love fairy tale retellings, and this showed me that my idea of “fairy tales” was actually quite limited. I think this is a great way to expand beyond the Snow White & Cinderella stories that are most common.

I enjoyed this collection of retellings. There were certainly ones that I enjoyed more than others. All of the retellings are every original and take a fun spin on the original tale. I came to a three-star review by averaging my ratings for each story.

Don’t you hate when you request a book on NetGalley (or any ARC reviewing site) and the book turns out not to be as good as you were expecting? Well, that’s what happened with this book. I actually didn’t finish this book. I didn’t finish it because I got bored. The whole book is basically retellings of all the fairytales we grew up hearing with a few twists here and there. When I requested this book on NetGalley, I thought it sounded really good and different. I wasn’t wrong, this book is different than the type of books that I would normally read, but like I said, I just got bored reading it. I’m sure there are some of you that may enjoy this book, it just wasn’t for me.
 
Thank you, NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for this advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

I loved everything about this book. There are many fairy tales that we have heard retold over and over, and yet Jane Yolen gives them a touch that makes them one of a kind. I enjoyed every one of these stories, whether I previously knew about them or not. I couldn’t put this book down, I read it in a heartbeat. I loved the cover. It is so original that the stories start there. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves original fairy tale retellings.
*I received this book in exchange for an honest opinion.

Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy most of the stories in here. She has some interesting twists and turns but while Jane Yolen is usually a pro at fracturing fairy tales, and I love so much of her past work, something about this collection didn't feel cohesive or new.

This was such a fun, fresh take on classic fairy tales! I loved the clever twists and turns and the unique character voices. What a fantastic, wild ride!

Loved it, fairy tales for the modern woman. Those tales you thought you knew didn’t happen the way you thought. These tales were inspired and brilliant. I loved the feminist twists. A great read

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

I received this book in exchange for an honest review, which has not altered my opinion of this book.

I love fairy tales. I want to get that out of the way now. However, fairy tales can also really annoy me because much of the time they lack what I would consider being basic logic. These stories were very similar to many fairy tales I’ve read, minus the fact that they add in logic and/or aspects that would be intrinsic to the time period because it would have made an impact and I’m glad that they didn’t just become fluffy. Sometimes we want fluffy and sometimes we really don’t. As stated in “Granny Rumple”: ‘stories are told one way, history another.’

This collection I will say I enjoyed quite a bit until the last few stories. The first many are ones that I would love to keep and read to any small children because they are interesting. One that stuck out to me was “The Bridge’s Complaint” I mean how often do you read a story told from the point of view of an inanimate object?

Overall, I would give this a 3.5 out of 5. This book was quite fun and I did enjoy about half of the stories and would reread the book just for those stories. Others I was very underwhelmed by and probably would not read again.

Such a cool book! I loved the tone and the writing was just perfect. It gives a different slant to fairytales, which I am all about these days. A solid read.

Another charming collection of fairy tales from the inimitable Jane Yolen. I enjoyed her inventive takes on timeless tales, especially her reimagining of the origin of Guinevere, which is pretty gruesome. I especially delighted in the poems included in this collection, which complement the stories and create added dimension to their tellings. Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys fantasy and fairy tales written by a master storyteller.

I am a big fan of reimagined fairy tales and myths, so this book was right up my alley. With all collections like this there are always some I really like and others that I do not. My favorites in this collection were Snow in Summer, The Moon Ribbon, Sleeping Ugly, and The Woman Who Loved a Bear. The only thing I wish had been different about this book was putting all the explanations of how she came up with the ideas at the end of the book. I feel it would have worked better to put those either at the beginning or end of each story. It would have broken up the book a little rather than feeling like I was just reading one short story after another. Also, the story would have been fresh in my mind when I was reading about her process.

How To Fracture a Fairy Tale is a clever and fun read. It's perfect for fans of ya fantasy. Interesting story with great characters.

I absolutely love collections of short stories and getting a fresh story every 20 or so pages to change it up. This one was okay. They were definitely unique but some fell flat for me. Please check out her other book, Emerald Circus, though. You will not be disappointed.

I LOVED this fairy tale collection. Some of them I knew straight away what tale they were twisting, and others took me a while. The ones that took me a while were the ones I didn't totally get into, but they were still super fun! I'm a huge fan of the traditional fairy tales, and I think these were done in a creative, refreshing, modern (some of them), entertaining way!

Jane Yolen is lovely, and her writing and fairy tales are as well. This compilation of fractured and retold fairy tales will be a wonderful addition to any YA section. Fairy tales are so in right now!