Rapunzel’s Daughters or After the Ever After

Today’s Book Review Tuesday post is a review of Rapunzel’s Daughters, a collection of short stories that take common (and not-so-common) fairy tales beyond their common “happily ever after” endings. A review copy of the book was provided free of charge by Pink Narcissus Press.

Let me start by saying that I love fairy tales. I love the drama, the romance, the formula they follow. I love that they provide lessons – sometimes good, sometimes not so much – and that they so often feature children outwitting evil/hapless/stupid/ambitious adults. I love that they are dark – at least the originals – and that they stem from the oral tradition of storytelling. The one thing that I don’t love – the endings. Don’t misunderstand – I’m as big a fan of a happy ending as the next girl. I am, after all, getting married this fall! What I mean is that I don’t like how they end. Again, read that carefully before jumping all over me – I’m fine with where they end, what I don’t like is the how. The almost always end too abruptly. I often found myself wondering what would happen next – sure it was great that Cinderella’s sisters got their come-uppance, but what exactly did that mean or look like? Snow White got her prince, but what about the dwarves? And so on and so on.

There have been a number of attempts to address these very questions. Into the Woods is a musical example that I happen to love, having seen it on Broadway and in taped DVD form. Books like Gregory Maguire’s Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister and Mirror Mirror take fairy tales in new directions, providing not only past-the-endings but also alterna-storylines – as of course does his most famous endeavor, Wicked (also a fabulous musical).

In Rapunzel’s Daughters, thirty-one authors provide their own spin on fairy tale endings. The collection is, frankly, odd.  Odd and more than a little uneven.  The individual pieces vary in length and depth. Some are very dark and some are merely trying very hard to be. A few are clever and unique; more feel forced, like the authors are desperate to out-wit one another and the original stories.  This is a difficult task indeed since the original stories are classics, and many if not most readers (at least, if they are even remotely like me) are likely to already have strong feelings about them, if not their own take on the “what comes next” scenario.

I have to admit that I most enjoyed the stories that went seriously dark and twisted; the handful that tried for a wry sophistication or almost-mocking light-banter felt the most forced to me and I enjoyed them the least.  But the ones that went into Stephen-King-like eerie-land, well, those were pretty fun to read…  A few examples: “The Spyder” by Rev DiCerto is a delicious trip into some seriously creepy vengeance-laden territory that I would not have ever imagined as the stomping grounds for a nursery rhyme character I always imagined as rather sweet and vapid (sorry for being vague; to say more is to spoil the surprise-treat!); “Aroma” by Jonathan McKinney gives a serial-killer’s slant to “Hansel and Gretel” in a way you are not likely to catch on to right away; and “Dreams of the Tower” by Mat McKenzie flips Rapunzel’s damsel-in-distress situation right around with an interesting dream-world twist.

All in all this is an unusual mixture of strong and not-so-strong tales.  The unifying theme – that they are all post-“happily ever afters” – is actually less unifying than it would otherwise seem as a result.  While there are some real gems in here, they are buried pretty deeply among a number of stories that try very very hard to be clever and interesting but with mediocre (at best) results.  I have to give this one a 2.5 out of 5 overall as a result…