The Primroses Were Over

It's always hard for me to rate an entire book of short stories as a whole because there is almost no way I'm going to like them all equally. This is, of course, true in this case as well. Generally, however, these were enjoyable forays into twisting fairy tales a bit.

I enjoyed the second part of the book overall more than the first, as the first part was set in modern times and the second in more traditional fairy tale settings. Hey, I'm a fantasy person at heart! Placing some of these fairy tales in modern times just felt off, no matter how interesting the twist, and seemed to lower the stakes. If you can't be turned into a frog or burned as a witch at any moment, it just feels generally less dangerous!

For all that I enjoyed the more traditionally-set tales, my favorite in the book was probably the take on Sleeping Beauty, which was very well done and handled with genuine care, not just kid gloves. It was somehow exactly what it ought to have been, exactly the treatment that that story needed and had not yet gotten.

There were a few I wasn't terribly fond of, but the writing was good and nothing dragged on past its welcome, so I never really felt the need to set the book down. I felt like one of the weaker stories was, unfortunately, the first in the book, which is both a blessing and a curse. Short story placement can be extremely tricky, and I did wonder as I was reading that take on Cinderella whether this was going to be a book for me. As it turned out, I'm quite glad I went on from there, though, and I enjoyed this.

This book was provided to me for free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.