This book goes to show fairy tales are timeless; the same crap you’re going through now in real life happened to people whose stories (most of the time) ended in “Happily Ever After.” It was highly enjoyable; I appreciated that Gotauco pulled out a list of stories that (for the most part) I had never read or heard of before, as well as one or two I’ve read different iterations of. Interesting (and showing the international collectedness she talks about) how many of the stories had elements I’d read in the folk tales of other books. I enjoyed the stories being told in her own voice, with the extremely humorous asides; it gave the book on the whole the feeling that you were sitting around back during the days of storytellers in taverns or around campfires, throwing in their own opinions and feeding off the energy of the gathered villagers.
She discuss how selfish children are (delightfully so), filtering everything through their own lights and experiences, and then adds that adults aren’t much different. With saying that, I think I case could be made that my reviewing the book (or in fact, the book itself) is kind of proving her point; but I may be getting a little too meta here.
The accompanying illustrations by her sister, Jade A. Gotauco, are absolutely perfect at the beginning of each story; my personal favorites are the ones contained in Chapter Four, “What’s Your Body Count?”, with the list of the dead worked into each illustration.
The trigger warnings were also helpful, as well as being absolutely hilarious; though anyone who thinks Fairy Tales shouldn’t merit trigger warnings should really look beyond Disney to the source material. I also liked that every tale was followed by a list of recommended books; it made me want to pick up several of them, and I am here for books that encourage me to indulge in my book hoarding tendencies.
There are maybe two small (very small) things I will say that might be slight dings: one, in defense of the country of my ancestors, Ireland has some really great tales that aren’t Oscar Wilde (may I suggest “The Pudding Bewitched”? not bloody, but strange and hilarious); and two, in “The X-Treme Sport of Giant Killing” there’s a small typo: the king mentions the two combs (one silver, one gold) to Molly, and then says one of her sisters can marry one of his sons if she fetches the sword. Swords for the second son there, my confused king. But those are two small things (and I admit one is just a persnickety personal preference), and they in no way take away from the utter delightfulness of the book. Definitely pick this one up.
Note: I won my copy of this book in the raffle during the Virtual Launch Celebration. This in no way affected my review, but I must mention it in the spirit of total honesty. Also, not knowing I had won it, my mother had ordered me a copy that arrived around the same time. So now I have to decide if I have anyone in my friend list that deserves it as a gift, or should I keep it as you can never have too much of a good thing.