Snow White Learns Witchcraft: Stories and Poems by Theodora Goss3.75 starsThis anthology collection focuses on retellings through short stories and poetry (which I thought was a nice blended-medium form of storytelling and it was cohesive). Goss has a good mix of darker concepts, but tends to sway toward the more enchanting, whimsical, and fun side of retellings. I prefer dark retellings because I’m a glutton for punishment and like to cry, but these were so much fun. Goss is a fantastic poet wh...

"Fairy tales are another kind of Bible, for those who know how to read them."Snow White Learns Witchcraft is a collection of poems and short fiction by Theodora Goss, an author probably best known for her mystery/sci fi genre blender Athena Club series. As implied by the title, all of the stories and poetry in Snow White Learns Witchcraft are related to fairy tales. Many of the stories will feel familiar to anyone who grew up with even the tame versions by Disney but she also includes some that

I always love Theodora Goss' writings, so it was a joy to finally read this book of poems and fairy tale unravelings and reimaginings. Goss has an extremely emotional and grounded manner of writing. She uses common themes and symbols, but often takes her works into uncharted places. But there is also a distancing in her books that I enjoy and respect a great deal. If you read her blog and follow her interviews you notice how cerebral and cautioned she is with her words. She admits to being a wom...

What a lovely, random find this was. I saw this in my daily deal email from Bookbub for 1.99 and figured why not. A quick glance at the Goodreads page and you'll see there aren't many reviews (not surprising since it's from a tiny, now shuttered indie press), but the critical reviews were glowing: starred reviews and praise from heavy hitters like Neil Gaiman. From the description I expected something like The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter, which I adored, but this was so different in tone and...

This is a terrific collection of eight stories and twenty-three poems with the shared theme of re-told folk or fairy tales. They strike me excellent literary works, both singly and as a whole. The poetry is narrative, some more classically structured and others more free formed, and is just as enjoyable as her Songs For Ophelia volume from a couple of years ago. I'd read some of the stories before, in her previous collection In the Forest of Forgetting and elsewhere, but enjoyed revisiting them

I loved this collection! I'm a big fan of fairytale retellings but I usually don't love poems. This one just hit it out of the park for me. I recently realized that I had been approved for a copy on Netgalley but never downloaded it so I decided to buy it since it still seemed like something I might like. I am so glad I did because I LOVED it! Some of my favorites were: "Thorn and Briars," "Blanchefleur," "Goldilocks and the Bear," "The Stepsister's Tale," "Seven Shoes," and "Diamonds and Toads"...

This is a lovely collection of short stories and poems retelling fairytales. I'd read the vast majority of them before, but still had some new ones to discover.Of the ones I've read before, the short story "Red as Blood and White as Bone" still gives me a good little shiver. I love this story about the power of stories and belief and magic and love. It's magical. Of the poems, "Rose Child" is a continued favorite. I believe it won a Rhysling Award as well.She included a couple from her previous

I’ve actually first heard of the author when The Alchemist’s Daughter came out. Means to check it out, didn’t get around to it yet. But then the library got this book and I figured why not. Though poetry may not be my thing, fairy tales very much are. And it requires a certain not insignificant amount of skill to take an already perfect entity such as a proper (European, unDisneyfied) fairy tale and spin into something new and fresh and modern and do so in an appropriately timeless fashion. Goss...

The word “charm,” in various forms, appears about a dozen times in this excellent and well-designed book. This is not surprising, given its fairy-tale foundations. I’ve spent more time with Goss’s poems than with her short stories, and it is in the poems that I realize how Goss’s “charm” has a double connotation when combined with her fiction writer’s facility for writing good, sound sentences.First is the positive connotation, and the one that carries through all of Goss’s poems, stories, and n...

The Athena Club series has been one of my favorite discoveries of 2020. I really enjoyed all those characters claiming their faith and taking life into their own hands. I also loved how Goss managed to really capture the atmosphere of all these cities and teach us some history along the way. So, when there was a discount on the e-book of this collection of fairytale inspired poems and stories, I didn't hesitate and got it right away. Especially because short stories are perfect to read on the si...

4.5 starsI have found a new writer that I absolutely love and good for me, she has a large canon for me to enjoy! I saw this book on my daily Amazon sales email and was instantly drawn to the fairytale retelling motif and then to learn the author was Hungarian (like me) well I knew I had to read it. I read it in basically two sittings. It is short and it goes quickly as once you start you can’t get enough. Each of the stories and poems are delightful and you will want to go back and read the ori...

I really enjoyed these retellings. There are a few longer (in audio between 20 and 40 minutes each) stories, and heaps of smaller poems/snippets that range from 1 minute to 5 minutes each. The stories and poems range from cute and lovely to sad but sweet to dark and sometimes creepy, so it's a pretty good range. Not all of them have happy endings, not all of them are based around romances. All of them, imo, were fantastic. I can't really say which were my favourites because there were so many sm...