May 16 2012
Dear Ms. Huck, Your book “Princess Furball” was recommended to me by etv13, one of our readers here, after I posted a review of the movie “Donkey Skin.” I instantly fell in love with the name since I have two little Princess Furballs at home. Well, I finally got my own copy of the book [...]
Apr 13 2012
Peau D’ane (Donkey Skin) (1971) Genre: Romantic Fairy Tale Grade:B+ Last year after I had reviewed a series of Cinderella movies, a friend recommended that I try this French fairy tale called Donkey Skin – or Peau D’ane. I was game and rented it from Netflix. Talk about beautiful European WTFery. Holy heck. This one [...]
Dec 29 2011
Dear Ms. James: I confess that my dislike for the portrayal of one character in this book really overshadowed everything else. I haven’t been following this new series of yours closely but I understand that you are revisiting classic fairy tales. This story is based on the Princess and the Pea. The Princess and the [...]
Nov 21 2011
Dear Ms. Singh: This is the fourth book in a connected series with the three other stories written by three other authors. I haven’t read the other three and I don’t feel like my reading experience was impaired in any way. The prologue lays the table. A long lived people leaved peacefully and prosperously in [...]
Jul 14 2011
Dear Ms. Riley. I requested this book by saying, “I’ll trust A.M. Riley to take me anywhere.” I was not blown away by the blurb and the excerpt looked flippant so if it had been anyone else, I would not have requested it. But you? I trust your writing (despite not being able to finish [...]
Jul 11 2011
Dear Ms. Sharpe, I was a big fan of your previous reworking of the story of Cinderella, Ember, so when I heard you had another novella out based on a fairy tale, I was intrigued. I was slightly dismayed to discover that Cat’s Tale was based on Puss in Boots, which is a fairy tale [...]
Apr 27 2011
Dear Ms. Paris, Around the time we were having the discussion of rape fantasies here at DA, Jane asked for recommendations of books similar to Cara McKenna’s Willing Victim, and your novella, Petals and Thorns, came up on Twitter. Reader MaryK, who hadn’t read it, thought it might fit the bill of what Jane was [...]
Feb 26 2011
Dear Ms. Drake: I don’t read a lot of futuristics but I’m trying to be more adventurous in my reading so when this Carina Press book popped up on NetGalley, I requested it. It’s a no risk proposition to try out new books via NetGalley. Jaq’s Harp is a short story with six chapters. I’m [...]
Feb 18 2011
Ella Enchanted (2004) Genre: Fractured Fairy Tale Grade: B I’d been toying with watching this movie for a while, ever since I got in the Cinderella kick, but negative comments about its adaptation from the book always put me off. But then I thought, “Jayne you haven’t read the book so what do you care?” [...]
Jan 7 2011
Tri orÃsky pro Popelku (Three Wishes for Cinderella, aka Three Nuts for Cinderella, aka Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel) (1973) Genre: Fairy Tale Grade: B Estara’s comment about this Czech/East German TV production got me interested in seeing it. But wishing to see it and actually getting my hands on a Region 1 NTSC copy proved [...]
Dec 3 2010
The Slipper and the Rose (1976) Genre: Fairy Tale/Musical/Romance Grade: B The first time I saw this musical version of Cinderella was a few years ago on the Disney Channel. I thought I’d watch it and laugh at Richard Chamberlain singing but ended up pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the movie. While it’s [...]
Aug 27 2010
Dear Ms. DiPasqua: I placed a recommended note by your book after I read it because I appreciated the freshness of the location (France), the spirit of the stories (that woman are often oppressed during certain time periods and must find their own ways of gaining agency), and the clever mirroring of the fairy tales. [...]
Jul 29 2010
Dear Ms. James, When Jane sent me a batch of books for review, I was particularly excited to find A Kiss at Midnight in the pile. Over the years, I have come to expect interesting and realistically rendered characters from you; characters who often defy the clichés their roles in the plot force them into [...]
Apr 16 2010
Princes et Princesses (2000) Genre: Animation/Fairy Tales Grade: B Despite the fact that this is animation and about fairy tales, it is not a film I would recommend for children – that is unless they speak French. It’s a French film and thus has subtitles which rules it out if one can’t read them or [...]
Jan 5 2010
Dear Ms. Andrews, On the Edge was the first of your books that I’ve read, but it will not be the last. Rose Drayton and her two young brothers, Jack and Georgie, live in the Edge, an area where two dimensions known as the Weird and the Broken overlap. In the Weird, people have magical [...]
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