I'm still processing some of these stories, but wow! What an amazing book! The stories in this collection, based loosely on fairytales, are often stunning and unpredictable. I would love Kelly Link to make a companion volume with a new, closer interpretation of the original fairytales—I'm not sure she could reign herself in, but it would make for an interesting follow-up. A mix of realism and speculative fiction, White Cat, Black Dog takes us on a raucous journey that is wildly imaginative and fiercely compelling.

This was the first book I read by Kelly Link and I truly enjoyed it. I'm a sucker for fairy tales and stories in the vein of Twilight Zone and this hit all the marks for me. All of the short stories were a blast to read and I enjoyed all the different characters and worlds. "The Lady and the Fox" was my favorite of the bunch. Kelly LInk is honestly so creative and can effortlessly blend genres to craft perfect stories.

My review for Chicago Review of Books https://chireviewofbooks.com/2023/04/03/enchanted-retellings-in-kelly-links-white-cat-black-dog/

Kelly Link’s fiction always brings to my mind the old-timey phrase “spinning a yarn.” Although I’ve learned this idiom has nautical origins, for me, it evokes spindles, spinning wheels, and the realm of folktales. And while Link tends to reinvent her own style so that no two stories are alike, all of them can be identified for their craftsmanship, spun as they are into bewitching, twisting knots made of the gossamer threads of language itself.

In her previous collections, Link has dipped into fantasy, horror, magic realism, science fiction, and the list goes on. Her writing is frequently described as “hard to classify.” In contrast, White Cat, Black Dog—Link’s first book since 2015’s Get in Trouble—stands out for its straightforwardness. It has a unified mission that is easy to sum up: This is a book of retellings, and Link isn’t shy about that. Following each of her story’s titles is a second, parenthetical title, alerting the reader to the traditional folktale she retells. But true to form, each story takes a different approach to retelling.

Opening the collection—and providing one of the two eponymous animals—is “The White Cat’s Divorce.” Here, Link retraces many of the same major plot points as the French fairy tale “The White Cat.” In the original, a wealthy king sends his three sons on a series of quests, ostensibly to see which will become his heir. There are classic tropes: the rule of threes, talking animals, and magical transformations. In Link’s version, these elements are infused with a contemporary context. The rich father is a member of our modern billionaire class. He is obsessed with maintaining his youth, receiving “blood transfusions from adolescent donors.” While absurd, this pursuit is not altogether far-fetched given the current hobbies of our planet’s wealthiest men. We follow the youngest son, a boyish man desperate for parental love—like so many children of billionaires. Lost in a snowstorm, he asks a group of cats for help. “Please, can you assist me? I have AAA, but my phone has no reception out here.” The story is full of such one-liners, starting firmly in a fairy tale but tendriling out to reach us with our roadside assistance and our overreliance on smartphones. The cats—by the way—work on a marijuana farm in Colorado.

In “The Game of Smash and Recovery,” Hansel and Gretel are cast not into our world, but into science fiction. This story’s protagonist is Anat, a young girl who lives with her brother. She has limited memory of her past or understanding of her present. We learn that the siblings are on a planet inhabited by vampires. Like the original fairy tale, their parents have abandoned them. The fun—and tragedy—of this story is putting the pieces together, following the proverbial breadcrumbs, if you will, along with Anat toward the revelatory conclusion.

“Skinder’s Veil” is the final story, a reimagining of “Snow-White and Rose-Red” that spins a layered philosophical and psychological tale. “Once upon a time there was a graduate student,” it begins. And so we meet Andy, who is struggling through his dissertation and annoyed with his roommate. He’s agreed to house-sit at a remote cabin that belongs to someone named Skinder. There are only two rules to follow: allow any friend of Skinder’s to come inside, but never let Skinder in. This story features quirky characters, embedded fairy tales, and a puzzle that circles around and in on itself. It also features a black dog so that, in a lovely symmetry with the opening story, we have our bookended title.

It is a standout in the collection and I am left still thinking about it. Elsewhere in the book, Link reimagines a Scottish ballad, a Norwegian tale, and German stories collected by the Brothers Grimm. Link brings us a love story that takes us to hell, a main character stuck at an airport hotel, and a post-plague future where corpses must be left on display to ward off a vague evil.

Kelly Link’s fiction always brings to my mind the old-timey phrase “spinning a yarn.” Although I’ve learned this idiom has nautical origins, for me, it evokes spindles, spinning wheels, and the realm of folktales. And while Link tends to reinvent her own style so that no two stories are alike, all of them can be identified for their craftsmanship, spun as they are into bewitching, twisting knots made of the gossamer threads of language itself.

In her previous collections, Link has dipped into fantasy, horror, magic realism, science fiction, and the list goes on. Her writing is frequently described as “hard to classify.” In contrast, White Cat, Black Dog—Link’s first book since 2015’s Get in Trouble—stands out for its straightforwardness. It has a unified mission that is easy to sum up: This is a book of retellings, and Link isn’t shy about that. Following each of her story’s titles is a second, parenthetical title, alerting the reader to the traditional folktale she retells. But true to form, each story takes a different approach to retelling.

Opening the collection—and providing one of the two eponymous animals—is “The White Cat’s Divorce.” Here, Link retraces many of the same major plot points as the French fairy tale “The White Cat.” In the original, a wealthy king sends his three sons on a series of quests, ostensibly to see which will become his heir. There are classic tropes: the rule of threes, talking animals, and magical transformations. In Link’s version, these elements are infused with a contemporary context. The rich father is a member of our modern billionaire class. He is obsessed with maintaining his youth, receiving “blood transfusions from adolescent donors.” While absurd, this pursuit is not altogether far-fetched given the current hobbies of our planet’s wealthiest men. We follow the youngest son, a boyish man desperate for parental love—like so many children of billionaires. Lost in a snowstorm, he asks a group of cats for help. “Please, can you assist me? I have AAA, but my phone has no reception out here.” The story is full of such one-liners, starting firmly in a fairy tale but tendriling out to reach us with our roadside assistance and our overreliance on smartphones. The cats—by the way—work on a marijuana farm in Colorado.

In “The Game of Smash and Recovery,” Hansel and Gretel are cast not into our world, but into science fiction. This story’s protagonist is Anat, a young girl who lives with her brother. She has limited memory of her past or understanding of her present. We learn that the siblings are on a planet inhabited by vampires. Like the original fairy tale, their parents have abandoned them. The fun—and tragedy—of this story is putting the pieces together, following the proverbial breadcrumbs, if you will, along with Anat toward the revelatory conclusion.

“Skinder’s Veil” is the final story, a reimagining of “Snow-White and Rose-Red” that spins a layered philosophical and psychological tale. “Once upon a time there was a graduate student,” it begins. And so we meet Andy, who is struggling through his dissertation and annoyed with his roommate. He’s agreed to house-sit at a remote cabin that belongs to someone named Skinder. There are only two rules to follow: allow any friend of Skinder’s to come inside, but never let Skinder in. This story features quirky characters, embedded fairy tales, and a puzzle that circles around and in on itself. It also features a black dog so that, in a lovely symmetry with the opening story, we have our bookended title.

It is a standout in the collection and I am left still thinking about it. Elsewhere in the book, Link reimagines a Scottish ballad, a Norwegian tale, and German stories collected by the Brothers Grimm. Link brings us a love story that takes us to hell, a main character stuck at an airport hotel, and a post-plague future where corpses must be left on display to ward off a vague evil.

It's always hard to review short story collections because it's inevitable that some stories are stronger than others. That's not the case with White Cat, Black Dog - there really were no stinkers here! This is my first collection by Kelly Link and it won't be the last.

There's truly something for everyone in White Cat, Black Dog. The stories all have elements of magic, with some being more whimsical (The Lady and the Fox), some spooky (The White Road), and even a bit of sci-fi (The Game of Smash and Recovery). I'm not familiar with the fairy tales behind retold here, and while I imagine you will get more from the stories if you are, I still enjoyed them very much.

It's hard for me to pick a favorite story from this collection so I will narrow it down to three:

The White Cat's Divorce: A wealthy man sends his three sons on errant tasks to earn their inheritance/prove their love to him (really he just wants them to leave). Elements of fantasy - dogs small enough to fit in nut shells, magic swords, talking cats. I loved the silly moments here (a dispensary full of weed farming cats? Say less) and the puns were great.

The White Road: Eerie and super unsettling post-apocalyptic tale. A performance troupe travels from town to town. A body must be displayed as tribute or The White Road will come for you. A whole town seems to vanish into thin air. This story reminded me a bit of Station Eleven, but more sinister.

Skinder's Veil: A man is tasked with housesitting in a remote part of Vermont. The house comes with a set of strange rules and even stranger visitors. This story was strange and engaging the whole way through. I thought it was going to get dark and am glad it didn't.

I'd recommend White Cat, Black Dog to anyone who likes fairy tales or just whimsical/weird stories.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the review copy.

𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝒔𝒐, 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝒊𝒕 𝒎𝒂𝒚 𝒃𝒆 𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒖𝒓𝒗𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒓 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒊𝒇 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒐 𝒂 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒄𝒉 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒂𝒇𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒅. 𝑶𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒘𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒔𝒐 𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒂𝒇𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎. 𝑯𝒐𝒘 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒘𝒆 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒃𝒆? 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒎𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔.

This collection is a refreshing reinvention of fairy tales, stories that are eerie, tender, shocking and strange. 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑾𝒉𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒂𝒅 is by far the most engaging and a touch repulsive when you gnaw on the prop they use to avoid the beings that travel upon the road. What has happened, to bring the world to such a state as this, where a company of people, mostly actors, travels through settlements selling goods, spreading news and performing while something stalks humanity. Are they living in hell? Our narrator is busy ‘picking her way through desperate places’, but how desperate will she become herself? What acts are people capable of, when the world pushes them to become someone else?

The first story is about divorce, a rich man, quests he forces upon his three sons and a beautiful, white cat that can talk. It is about desire, obedience, greed, and our quest to be loved. 𝑷𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑯𝒂𝒕 𝑼𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒈𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 is about love’s feckless nature, and our hunger to hold onto it keeping those who would steal it away at bay. I thought the writing was lovely, the things we collect about our beloved and all the things that remain out of reach. In 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒅𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑭𝒐𝒙, Miranda is invited into the bosom of the Honeywell clan for Christmas by her godmother, Elspeth Honeywell. She knows the woman feels sorry for her, with her mother in jail, and as she feels like a spectator enjoying the ‘battalion’ of wealthy Honeywells and all their dramas,it is when she ventures outside into the snow that the real excitement enters her life. A man is in the garden, looking very much like a spoiled Honeywell, he tells her his name is Fenny, but who he is becomes a puzzle she wishes to solve. Year after year, she can’t wait for their next encounter. If only she could get him to stay, invite him inside to join in the jubilation but there are strange rules.

𝑺𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓’𝒔 𝑽𝒆𝒊𝒍 is about a graduate student named Andy Sims who cannot finish his dissertation, is falling off schedule and accepts his friend’s offer to be her proxy by house-sitting in a remote place while she has business to tend to. His biggest job is how he is to handle the friends of the owner when they come knocking at the door. There will, without a doubt, be visitors. Naturally, it gets creepy. He must not break the rules.

Every story gives the reader ‘much to think about’. I would read a full novel based on several of these characters anytime. Yes, read it, it was a nice escape from the weight of the world today.

Published March 28, 2023

Random House

White Cat, Black Dog was an interesting collection of short stories. I thought they were really well done. If you are a fan of unpredictable short stories, this is the collection for you. The illustrations between the stories were fantastic.

I hadn't read any of Kelly Link's stories before, so I went into this collection of 7 reimagined fairy/folktales with no expectations. I ended up being delighted by these weird, wonderful tales. Although folklore retellings are everywhere these days, Link selects fairly obscure ones and takes them apart thoroughly in order to reassemble them in unexpected ways.

I like reading short fiction because it's such a tough task to set up a whole world and satisfy the reader in a few scant pages. Writers who excel at short fiction are specialists and I could tell right from jump in The White Cat's Divorce that Kelly Link is very good at her job. The language of each of story is so cinematic that I felt as if I had a perfect visual of the setting and action - and yet Link doesn't overdescribe things at all.

Standouts of the collection for me were The Lady & The Fox and Skinder's Veil, but I genuinely liked them all. Recommended for fans of George Saunders and Karen Russell.

Perhaps it’s a lingering fondness for the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons, but I’ve always had a fondness for properly Fractured Fairy Tales. As the author of this collection has long been a writer I intended to read but never quite found the appropriate ‘Round Tuit’ for, this collection seemed like the perfect opportunity to indulge in a bit of cartoon nostalgia while discovering an author I’d heard of – often – but never actually read.

Also, there’s a cat in the title so I figured that I couldn’t possibly go wrong reading White Cat, Black Dog. And I did not.

There are only seven stories in this collection, each based on a different, but frequently familiar, fairy tale. As with all collections there are exceptions to the rules – but always interesting ones.

Of those seven stories, my favorite was the first – and titular story, “The White Cat’s Divorce”. I’m not at all familiar with the fairy tale it was based on, The White Cat, but this is one where I honestly didn’t care. It’s a story where the reader does guess what’s coming fairly early on, but it’s such a glorious delivery of just desserts that one doesn’t mind. Also, the concept of a clan of talking cats running a marijuana farm and dispensary is just too funny for words.

My next favorite story was “The Lady and the Fox”, based on Tam Lin, which I DO remember. It’s probably the story in this collection where the grimdark is on the lightest shade of darkness, as it’s a holiday story that leans into the warmth of the season and does result in at least the possibility of a happy ending. The romance at the heart of the story could go either way after the end, but by ending where it does it is possible for the reader’s mind to wrap the whole thing in the glow of its season.

The story that creeped me out the most was “The White Road”, based on The Musicians of Bremen, a fairy tale which rings only a faint bell. Its setup actually has a lot in common with Station Eleven, but it’s not a pandemic or lawless scavengers that come creeping for those who stray into the wrong places or in the wrong ways, but rather a road that comes for the dead but can be put off by really good – or even really hammy acting.

Several stories hit the middle of their road for me. “Prince Hat Underground” just went on too long. I loved the concept, even though it reminded me more of Orpheus and Eurydice than its intended fairy tale. Something about it just didn’t work for me, although many readers loved it. My feelings about “The Girl Who Did Not Know Fear” were similar in that it also did not work for me.

“The Game of Smash and Recovery” was supposed to be a take-off of Hansel and Gretel and I just plain didn’t see it. It did remind me of a combination of Medusa Uploaded and In the Lives of Puppets, which made it a very weird place to be even though the fairy tale was fractured completely beyond recognition.

Last, but not least in either size or scope, is the final story in the collection, the story that includes the titular Black Dog, “Skinder’s Veil”. This story about a waystation for the denizens of fairy and the house-sitter substituting for an absentee owner who may or may not be Death and who may or may not be a dead-ringer (pardon the pun) for its protagonist had a fascinating premise as well as characters who told some equally fascinating stories. And who probably would feel right at home in Bill Willingham’s Fables. I liked the story a lot as I was reading it, but at the end it felt like something had either just slipped through my grasp, or that the entire point of the thing was in the implications it left behind.

Ultimately a fascinating conundrum but too puzzling to be a favorite. Which may very well sum up my thoughts about the collection as a whole – but I’m glad I read it just the same.

Escape Rating B: In any collection, there’s usually at least one story that doesn’t work for a particular reader, and that was certainly true for this reader. Howsomever, a sign of a good collection is that when one looks at reviews for it, that story or two that turned out to be not quite what the individual hoped are different for each reader.

And that’s certainly true with White Cat, Black Dog.

So, if you’ve been meaning to become acquainted with this author, or curious about the work of someone who won one of the MacArthur “Genius Grants”, White Cat, Black Dog is a great place to be introduced to Kelly Link and her eclectic tales that merge fantasy, SF, horror and the most classic of classic fairy tales into a twisty, spellbinding whole, this is a great way of going about it.

Link’s new collection contains stories that demand rereading with so many layers of meaning they move from brain into blood and bone and back again in a cyclical process. Read the rest of my review @TheBrooklynRail

TL;DR Goodreads Review:

apparently i've just been missing out on kelly link this whole time!

favs: the lady and the fox, the white road

-- SOME THOUGHTS --
As stated above, I have apparently let Kelly Link fly under my radar for much too long. In a class I took last semester, we read, "Stone Animals" and the hallucinatory, Gothic ghost story wormed its way under my skin and I was unable to get it out of there, even during the lengthy discussion of the story and its allegorical representation of domesticity as horror.

As in "Stone Animals," I was endlessly impressed and fascinated with the ways Link distorted, warped, twisted, torn apart and resewn, classic fairy tales and refashioned them into modern tales of the fantastical, complete with weed growing white cats, talking rats living on the Upper East Side of New York, a house-sitting gig interrupted by strange houseguests with references to Venmo, etc. I'm still unsure with how Link managed to create such an impressive self-contained world in one short story, and how she managed to have everything feel complete and not leaving me wanting more.

How can an author write the Queen of Hell as being both menacing and strangely charming? How can these characters go through such horrific events and not have the stories all feel like they're entirely doom and gloom? How can she write such vivid horror with a beautifully light touch, and make fairy tales not only real, but plausible? These are all questions that Kelly Link satisfied gorgeously throughout this collection with her strong narrative voice and complete confidence in knowing that she knows exactly where she wants to go.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the ARC of this book.

If you live short stories, look up author Kelly Link. If you love short stories, folk tales, and Grimm books, look up Kelly Links White Cat, Black Dog! I highly recommend this book. Why?

It is absolutely fun!!! I am a suckered for The Brothers Grimm and short stories. These stories will make you think you know where she's going with these old tales, but she takes it to a level that is so clever and witty and a really fun read! Yes a nod to Alice in Wonderland is in here too! What's better than falling down a rabbit hole?

Grab this book it's 5stars from me! Easily.

A collection of the strangest, most delightful fables that will stick with you long after you close the book & your eyes. This collection is at once whimsical and wonderfully dark - reading them feels like you’re sitting safe in an unbreakable bubble amongst a strange, benadryl-induced dream. The characters are rich, the descriptions full of life (and sometimes death), and they all leave you feeling cozy despite their darker aspects and themes. A new favorite.

Fairy tales, fables, weird rules, weird games, the last story turns into Psilocybin Bear…good stuff!

In this collection of modernized and remixed tales, Kelly Link blends the familiar with the mind-blowing.
Each of the speculative and fantastic stories in this collection is firmly rooted in the real world, giving the book an extra punch. While the author finds inspiration in familiar fairy tales and long told stories from around the world, there are enough twists and turns to keep the reader on the edge of their seat. There are so many bobs, weaves, and twists in these pages that the only thing to be expected is the unexpected. Seeing where each story begins, experiencing the cosmic and supernatural distances covered, and witnessing where we end up is one of the many thrills that unfold in these pages.
Highlights of the book include “Skinder’s Veil,” in which a relatively simple task of house sitting turns into a reality bending event as various unexpected characters materialize to the shock of the main character. Another favorite was “The White Cat’s Divorce,” and witnessing the lengths to which siblings will go to gain the favor of their mother as well as the money that she promises to leave behind to the child that meets her challenges.
White Cat, Black Dog is a notable title from an accomplished and talented author.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

White Cat, Black Dog is a collection of short stories which reinvent an eclectic selection of fairytales.

This short story collection won’t be for everyone, but for me, it was an incredibly fun read. The stories are often weird, unsettling, odd, and risky, and often bear only the slightest resemblance to the fairy tales they’re reinventing. They are unusual and fresh and interesting, as well as phenomenally written. Short story collections are often difficult as some stories may resonate more than others, but I think that anyone who loves a good, weird story will find something to love in White Cat, Black Dog.

My rating: 3.4/5

Varying in themes and tone, combining elements of fantasy and magical realism and speculative fiction, White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link is a collection of seven short stories that are essentially retellings of popular fairy tales and folklore in contemporary (and futuristic) settings.

My favorite story was Skinder’s Veil (4.5/5) which revolves around a young man who spends a few weeks filling in for his friend for a housesitting gig that comes with a set of interesting rules and even more interesting visitors. Atmospheric and engaging! Two other stories I enjoyed were The White Cat’s Divorce (4/5) in which three sons are sent on weird quests on the instructions of their affluent father who pits them against one another, claiming to declare the son who satisfies the terms and conditions of his quest most satisfactorily as his heir. Creative and entertaining! The Lady and the Fox (4/5) revolves around a young girl and her encounters with a ghostly presence during Christmas visits to a family friend’s home. A sweet story that retains a fairy tale quality! Prince Hat Underground (3/5) has Gary searching for his lost husband who disappears suddenly one day with a woman who was his ex-fiancée. This story was unnecessarily long and though I enjoyed how the story pans out eventually, I found my interest waning in the first half of the story. The White Road (4.5/5) follows a group of traveling performers in a post-apocalyptic future. This story was engaging and atmospheric. In The Girl Who Did Not Know Fear (2/5) a professor returning home from a lecture finds herself stranded at the airport on account of inclement weather. Though this story features sensitive issues such as mental health, the story was not engaging. The Game of Smash and Recovery (2/5) is a futuristic retelling of Hansel and Gretel featuring Oscar who cares for his younger sister Anat while his parents are away. As the narrative progresses Anat realizes her reality is not quite what she was made to believe. Unsettling, and imaginative but wasn’t quite my cup of tea.

It was nice that the author mentions the tale/ lore that inspired each story so that the reader might reference the same. A few of these original stories were not unknown to me, and while few stories rely heavily on the source material for inspiration others are barely recognizable as retellings. I truly loved the concept behind this collection and appreciate the creativity and imagination that went into crafting these retellings but overall, it was a mixed bag for me. I must mention Shaun Tan’s illustrations which perfectly captured the essence of each story.

Many thanks to author Kelly Link, Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for the digital review copy of this collection of stories. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. This book is due to be released on March 28, 2023.

White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link is everything I love about dreams, fairytales, and stories told by imaginative misfits and oddballs, shaken, stirred, and served up with a twist and a flourish in a teacup spilling with the wildest, most wondrous nonsense. These are tales you think you know--ballads, lore, bedtime stories you barely remember-- but turned inside out and upside down and unraveled and zigzag-patchwork-rebound until they are all but unrecognizable...and yet they still sing to something familiar in your blood. The twists, turns, and surprises are bizarre, sure--but they also feel beautifully and exquisitely inevitable. Kelly Link dreams up the weirdest of cozy, comfort reading, and I guess that's where all my analogies of teacups and stitched quilts come from; these stories are pretty bonkers and follow only the logic of dreams...but for daydreamers, woolgatherers, stargazers--that's our sweet spot, our safe space, our favorite place to be.

It’s been several days and I am still not sure what I think of all of this. Sometimes I was enjoying it immensely. Other times I just couldn’t connect. I know that these were weird retellings of fairy tales and I love when people can take their own spin around with something familiar. At times I was enthralled by the author’s originality, but sometimes I just didn’t like the new angle the author took. Isn’t that always the way? What I can say is all of the stories were bizarre and extremely original.

Let me start by saying that I loved the cover art, as well as the haunting illustrations by Shaun Tam at the beginning of each short story. I am generally a fan of the short story and collections of them, and was drawn into "White Cat, Black Dog" from the cover art and title.

This book will be published 3/28/23.

This is a collection of seven shortish stories, uniquely altered from fairy tales and folklore. I went into reading this without knowing anything about which tales each was inspired from.

Things I liked about this collection:
-each story had a completely unique voice, and I had to keep reminding myself that one author wrote all of the short stories since they were so completely different from one another in tone and theme.
-each short story was a good length and it took me about 1/2 hour to read each one. A few times, I felt some of them could've been cut down a bit, but overall the length worked for me.
-I enjoy speculative fiction, and this collection definitely veered in that direction at times.
-my favorite story from the collection was the first one "The White Cat's Divorce."

Things I didn't love:
-I honestly had zero clue what a couple of the stories were about after finishing them. This was especially the case in "The Case of Smash and Recovery"--just no idea what I had read or what the story was meant to convey.
-I have zero issue with sex and/or profanity in books. That being said, I felt like both were plunked into some of the stories and felt very out of place. There were characters who used the F word midway through the story, and the crude sex scenes just seemed strange.

I think this collection would really benefit from a section at the end of the book, written by the author, perhaps clarifying which tales inspired each of the short stories, and her intention in retelling them. I finished the book unclear as to her intended audience, as well as what each story was meant to convey from her twist on them.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

In a Nutshell: Too bizarre for my liking. For a collection of fairy tale retellings, there isn’t enough fairy tale content in any story. Might work for those who enjoy speculative fiction that’s on the weirder side of the logical spectrum.

This collection contains seven stories, though most of them are way too long to be considered ‘short’ stories. They touch the bottom range of novella-length fiction.

The seven tales are all retellings of classic fairy tales or lore, the name of the original being mentioned under the title of each story herein. Most of the retellings are set in the contemporary world, and have characters that could have been memorable had they been written differently. That said, the characters are diverse, and their personality ranges from vulnerable to manipulative, one plus point of the book.

For a change, I knew every single one of the original tales, and this increased my excitement at first. After all, the fun of reading a retelling comes from recognising how the author has twisted the original work and given it a fresh spin. Alas! Most of these retellings are as different from the base story as Salem (Tamil Nadu, India) is from Salem (Massachusetts, USA). The only one that comes close to retaining the essence of the original is the first story, ‘The White Cat’s Divorce’ (based on the French fairy tale named ‘The White Cat’), which is, not surprisingly, the best story of the book.

Honestly, this collection left me feeling as if I was not clever enough to understand it. The stories were either too outlandish or too weird. The endings were too abrupt in most cases, leaving me with a strange kind of restlessness. More importantly, the stories felt quite random in their flow, almost as if they were meandering for the sake of it. There’s no rhyme or reason to the events being narrated, nor is every question answered.

The only story I read with unbroken interest from start to end was the first one. The last story, ‘Skinder's Veil’ (based on the German fairy tale ‘Snow-White and Rose-Red’) was another decent story. The rest were mostly duds for me.

I have heard a lot about this author, but this makes me wonder if I will ever read her works again. I guess we aren’t exactly a match made in book heaven – I love logic too much and her stories defy logic.

As always, I rated each story individually, but except for the above two stories (4.5 and 3.5 respectively), none touched even the 3 star mark.

The logical side of me rebelled against this collection. The emotional side of me didn’t understand the point of this collection. The whole of me felt depressed at how badly this went. However, if you are fond of bizarre stories that are more about the writing than the ending, you might still like this. After all, this was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, so what do I know!

Better if you aren’t reading this as a retelling collection but as a speculative fiction anthology.

2.4 stars, based on the average of my rating for each story.


My thanks to Random House Publishing Group - Random House and NetGalley for the DRC of “White Cat, Black Dog”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this worked out so badly.