Melki's Reviews > The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror

"Had my own brothers lived," the king said, "they should certainly have tried to harm our own children and stifle our peace." His own brothers, however, had not lived. It was an important task of kingship, determining when brothers and sons were no longer necessary.

I was really looking forward to this collection of fairy tale retellings, but it proved to be a something of a let down. Ortberg's versions are somber and bleak, but really no darker than the original stories. Perhaps going grimmer was never the author's intention, but that was my expectation, and I was disappointed.

I liked three of the eleven tales, but all of them are already fading from memory. I thought the first story in the collection, The Daughter Cells, was the best of the lot, but any tale about carnivorous mermaids has the power to turn me into a quivering bowlful of algae. Perhaps the most unusual element to Ortberg's stories was the fluid sexual identities of some of the characters - male princesses, and daughters named Paul.

There really is a lot of talent on display here, and in the future, I'd like to read something that is not based on another's ideas, but created solely from the author's imagination