I've wanted to read this for ages, so when I had insomnia last night seemed like a good time. This book is a series of interlinked, usually traditional, fairytales, featuring the voices of women trapped within them -- sometimes with lesbian relationships, sometimes just (just!) the complicated relationships between women. For me, it felt a little flimsy, maybe not quite as magical as I'd hoped, but overall it was enjoyable. Mostly, I wished it was longer, that there was more of it. I think I enj...

Considering I read this in one sitting I definetly have to rate this a solid 4 stars. I haven't read many short stories. I believe Neil Gaimans Fragile Things makes up the entire list of short story collections I have read in their entirety. I'm not a huge fan of fairy tales and I really only enjoy the story of Beauty and the Beast. I believe that a reader who is very familiar with fairy tale lore will receive even greater enjoyment from this book then I did.I did enjoy each story equally and di...

Kissing the Witch is a quirky collection with the sub-title 'Old Tales in New Skins' - it contains thirteen re-imagined fairy tales by Irish writer Emma Donoghue. Donoghue's publishing credits include a non-fiction book on lesbian culture, and a lesbian sensibility is evident in this collection. Gay readers should especially enjoy this twist on some of the traditional 'boy meets girl' fairy tales.As a long-time student and lover of traditional stories, I found Kissing the Witch beautifully craft...

Donoghue combines self-righteous messages with blatantly didactic interior monologues which can only appeal to those already believing everything she says. She spurs no thought which was not already there, and in writing a book which never aspired to art, has done what your average writer does: increase the general volume of words in print, and nothing more. A string of random monkey-typed characters would have aided mankind as well.

I picked this up because Kirsty Logan of The Gracekeepers said that it was very influential for her. These are fairytale retellings with a feminist twist. They’re also stacked like Russian dolls, so at the end of one retelling you’ll have the ‘villain’ tell their backstory, and the witch of one tale becomes the heroine of the next. Your favourite fairy tale will probably be in here. There’s a Little Mermaid retelling which was probably my favourite.

I'm on a Emma Donoghue kick atm. Reading two of her books at the same time. I wouldn't normally do that but fairy tales are always easy to read on the side.Kissing the Witch was Donoghue's first story collection, a sequence of thirteen re-imagined fairytales, inspired by traditional European sources (Brothers Grimm, Perrault, Hans Anderson). I'm sure you will recognize many of your favorite fairy tales.I love how all the stories were connected. The author says about this:"One aspect of Kissing t...

If there's one thing I love more than fairytale retellings, it is a bunch of gorgeously written fairytale retellings with a splash of gay and a feminist flair to it, that kicks all the mothereffing tropes right in their faces.

‘’There are some tales not for telling, whether because they are too long, too precious, too laughable, too painful, too easy to need telling or too hard to explain.’’ I feel that this quote describes the essence of Donoghue's book in a poignant and clear way. This isn’t a collection of short stories in the traditional sense of the word. It is a series of tales closely linked to each other. The stories of women who loved, yearned, who were hurt by others, who sought revenge, justice, comfort.

Frustratingly simplistic. These are easy reversals of fairy tales, and stand or fall based entirely on the reader's agreement with the reversal, rather than as stories on their own. I like the idea of lesbian friendly fairy tales - I, for one, am someone who always wanted to kiss the witch, as the title proclaims - but there must be a way of telling those stories without leeching all the power of the original. Threat is powerful - the danger and ugliness of fairy tales are why they have stayed w...

4.5 stars. This is a very creative, atmospheric book of fairy tale retellings, with some of the best writing I've ever seen. I love how three-dimensional some of the tales are, and how she got these lovely characters developed in so short a time. The Tale of the Shoe: 5 stars. I don't think anyone can ever understand how much I love this Cinderella retelling. It's about being who you're supposed to be, or being who you truly are. And then, because I asked, she took me to the ball. Isn't that

"Climbing to the witch's cave one day, / I called out, / Who were you / before you came to live here?/ And she said, / Will I tell you my own story? / It is a tale of a kiss."Do you ever find a book and just know it's going to be everything you love in the world? Only you can't read it right away because it's not the right time, or you're not in the right mood, and you want everything to be perfect. What if you're wrong about it and it doesn't live up to your expectations? How will you find anot...

If I were to use one word to describe this book, it would be clever. “Change for your own sake, if you must, not for what you imagine another will ask of you.” These are considered fairytale re-tellings with a feminist twist, but the best part is that they are all connected as a woman asks the other who they were "before", and together they make a novel that leaves you begging for more.They were girls, princesses, innocent or not so, all before they became witches, stepmothers, crones. These sto...

Interesting that I really like this author’s work, but this was published nearly 20 years ago and she has obviously improved over time! These were ok but not terribly memorable.

At first, I felt like this book was appealing but super derivative. Inspired by some of the same feminist motives as Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, Donoghue puts a new twist on familiar fairy tales. While her lyrical narration and playful recharacterization were immediately appealing, I found the sameness of the revisions somewhat pat. Yes, it always turns out that the evil witch is just a reviled woman; patriarchal culture too often condemns women for being alone, unattra...