Book Review: Twice Upon a Time

Title: Twice Upon a Time

Author: Multiple

Genre: Fairytale Retellings

Review:

Twice Upon a Time is a delightful and eclectic collection of tales with a supernatural twist. Ranging from fairy tale retellings set in the future to mixtures of beloved tales blended into a fantastical dream (or nightmare), you never know what characters you might stumble across. Like any anthology, there are ups and downs from story to story. Overall though, I thought that the collection was very well chosen, and there were definitely some hidden gems in there.

Readers to be warned though, many, and I repeat, many of the tales have no "happily ever afters". Instead you'll find "maybe ever afters" or "never ever afters". So if you're looking for the Disney take on fairy tales, you'll be better off somewhere. There are two particular stories I would like to give shoutouts to: "Steadfast" and "Brenna and the Spaceman."

I've never really known the tale of the steadfast tin soldier, but now I definitely want to read it after the gorgeous retelling by Hanna Lesniak. Told from the POV of a china ballerina, I was surprised that I could feel so much empathy/sympathy for a toy. A toy who doesn't even speak. And yet, I felt the ballerina's fear when Jack (in the box) terrorizes the other toys and my heart broke when her tin soldier gets abused by the Humans and feels the wrath of Jack's jealousy. I am oh so very impressed with Lesniak's skill, and her ability to tell a compelling story from an inanimate object's point of view. Now I feel like a horrible monster for chucking my plush cow across the room, haha.

"Brenna and the Spaceman" is another tale I simply couldn't put down because of its strangeness, and I say that in a complimentary fashion. What would you do if a spaceman (read futuristic astronaut that can be likened with today's law enforcement. 'cept in space) descended upon your Earthling home in the middle of the country, USA, and offers your parents a lot of money for you to go on a "little" adventure with the spaceman? What would you do if your parents really needed the money, so a deal is struck and suddenly you find yourself on a spacecraft orbiting the planet with a talking polar bear? And there seems to be no other human on board except for this mysterious stranger who appears at night, and you can see but cannot physically touch this person? Needless to say, Phillips' retelling of the Norwegian fairytale had me turning pages to figure out what was going on.

I do also believe "The Underbelly of the Pig", "Red as Heart's Blood" and "Traveller" also merit a shoutout. (Remember, Twice Upon a Time features over thirty stories, and since I read this anthology over quite a spread of time--lost my Nook for a bit, which may have hindered my reading abilities--any stories that vividly stand out definitely are worth checking out.) "The Underbelly of the Pig" is a darker, grimmer version of "The Three Little Pigs" in which there may be some back stabbing going on. Bacon can kill. Let's just leave it at that. I did not see the ending coming in "Red as Heart's Blood" . . . I actually think this Snow White retelling would make a very good novel if expanded upon . . . I mean, I would definitely be interested with reading it! And last but not least, "Traveller" is a surreal remixing of the biblical story of "Jonah and the Whale"; there is a simply lovely quote I just had to pull from "Traveller":

"I stood perfectly still, treading water in the flow of humanity."

*Pauses for a moment of silence and awe*

Finally, whoever designed the cover artwork for Twice Upon a Time did a stunning job. Definitely captures the overall mood of the stories contained within. 

Rating: