3.5 *

Horror isn't my cup of tea, but Lavery (formerly Ortberg) is really good at leaving weird spaces that play with your assumptions and creating an atmosphere of dread.

I think my favorite was "The Thankless Child," vaguely sketched sci fi dystopia with lots of intriguing detail, about salt and a godmother. Wish it ended differently, but, horror. My second favorite was "The Daughter Cells," because of the worldbuilding but also, honestly, because Lavery really captures the archetype of The Prince in fairy stories, and he sucks.

Loved the strong current of genderfuckery running throughout the book---male daughters who owe the world their beauty, brothers named Sylvia and sisters named Paul, the discussion in the salt/stepmother story about who should be the husband and who the wife. ( )

What a delightfully weird batch of fairy tales. Ortberg takes the familiar Grimm/Hans Christian Anderson tales we know and points out the somewhat sinister, creeping shadows lurking within. Sentences are lyrically crafted, and in the AM I shall edit the review for each short story, hopefully (granted, most times when I say "I will edit this later" I uh, usually don't. But we'll see. edit: I did it!) Right off the bat, though, the story that made the biggest impression on me is still probably the first, "The Daughter Cells" and probably the inspiration for the cover art, a horrifying but true-to-the-tale take on The Little Mermaid (despite what Disney would have you believe, she ends in seafoam. Ortberg's version puts the power in the mermaid's hands.)

The Daughter Cells
What an opener! I knew that Ortberg was going to play some with gender and roles, but honestly, I'm surprised I hadn't read a take on mermaids that's like "Hey, the ocean is full of weird things why do we assume they're like us" (though I'm sure they exist). Again, I really love the ending and how self-satisfied the youngest daughter is with her voices.

The Thankless Child
Cinderella for seemingly a dystopian feudal society, with definite religious influences. I appreciated the pastor's son asking if he should take on the husband or the wife role.

Fear Not: An Incident Log
The least "fairytale" in tone, almost felt more like a sci-fi approach to angels.

The Six Boy-Coffins
There's so many Grimm tales that also involve transmogrification into birds... so why not combine two? I was familiar with neither, but it makes sense to mash them up, and give the siblings happy endings.

The Rabbit
Truly, what does it mean to be Real, and what are you willing to do for it? I am curious about exactly how the Rabbit seemingly sucked the life out of his boy, but it's very fantastic to let that remain a mystery.

The Merry Spinster
The titular tale, Beauty and the Beast but somehow in modern-ish times, based on the mother being an executive, and references to flashy cars and things that her two younger children wanted? It was okay, but I find myself wondering why this was chosen for the title and the Daughter Cells as the cover art.

The Wedding Party
I'm not familiar with the sources (and couldn't pinpoint where the Earl of Mar's Daughter came in, unless I missed a bird reference... I did skim this, a little). Poor David.

Some of Us Have Been Threatening Our Friend Mr. Toad
I haven't read Some of Us Have Been Threatening Our Friend Colby before, but oooh. I remember reading The Wind in The Willows back in sixth grade thinking, "Huh, this is pretty grim, sending the protagonist to Hell". What if that was a recurring thing?

Cast Your Bread Upon the Waters
Selkie tale plus Christianity! Also, a shitty grandma~!

The Frog's Princess
This was brief, and felt like it ended abruptly (re: the Frog Princess, it ends with the frog nestled in bed from the first night, though it implies this is now how his life will be). Some pronoun bending.

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
It's been a while since I've read Frog and Toad are friends (though the influence here is the argumentative housemates). I'm surprised that neither died (I think). ( )

I am an unapologetic (Daniel*) Mallory Ortberg fangirl. I've followed his work since the Toast, was overcome with glee when he took over Dear Prudence and basically think he can do no wrong. I also love faerie tales and hate short stories, so that's pretty much the context for where I'm coming from.

Ortberg is a master of language and it shines here. His wit is subtle, but biting, and each story quickly comes into focus with a clear tone and setting, in a way that many short stories authors struggle with. In a lot of ways, the book reminded me of Kelly Link's work -- designed as an intellectual puzzle that left you feeling something, without necessarily understanding why or what was literally happening in the story. Which is a super cool effect. But sometimes, a girl just wants to get what's happening, so by the end of the book the impact of that had kind of worn off.

My favorite stories was the first, a really atmospheric retelling of The Little Mermaid, perhaps because many of the conceits that Ortberg used throughout the book were new and shiny still then. I loved the way Ortberg played with my expectations of "mermaid" by introducing radial symmetry, and the administrative humor of the Rules of the Fae. The siren/selkie tale later on used a lot of the same tricks, but just felt less cool.

The two Frog & Toad-based stories stood out. Both because I don't consider Frog & Toad a faerie tale, but also they both had the same tone of passive aggressive/gaslighting horror. (Which was kind of also present in the Merry Spinster -- where Beauty basically just bullied everyone by "never thinking of herself") And yes, that is my personal bogeyman, but at the same time, I kind of wanted to be like "who hurt you?"

*Daniel Mallory Orbterg came out as a transman and changed his name coincident to the publishing of this book. ( )

I knew I'd like this because I always enjoy Daniel Ortberg's writing, and I like new takes on fairy tales, and I wasn't disappointed. There's a lot going on with gender and gender expectations in these, which isn't surprising considering what Ortberg was doing at the time of writing. When you think about it, a lot of our fairy tales really are about finding a new role or rejecting a role in society, so it works and adds to the stories.

I enjoyed the reimagination of well known and long-told myths. I particularly enjoyed the ones where the thread that became the main theme was gaslighting — it was satisfying (rather than frustrating) to read the words and deeds of someone manipulating, because myths are cautionary tales and grim already.

I didn’t enjoy the degree of piecemeal unveiling the rules and worlds of the stories. That style has never been my strong suit, and for a couple of the stories it was obtuse enough that I never really understood enough to find the story satisfying. ( )