Carmen Gimenez Smith

short stories
fairy tale inspired
read some, they ranged from good and interesting to terrible, confusing, etc.

This whole collection is superb, but "American Mythos" in particular absolutely wrecked me.

Again with the books I wanted to like and just couldn't get into. There are some gems of story in here, but it's pretty slow going to get to them. I found that most of the stories were either slavish retellings of original stories, or wild philosophical ramblings that were difficult to follow. In both instances, they were tedious in the extreme. The exceptions were tremendous, but were almost always from writers who don't forget that tale implies storytelling.

This is essential reading for any admirer of the fairy tale. There are a few duds scattered throughout, but on the whole it's the best collection of modern re-imaginings of fairy tales that I've ever read, and I've read quite a few. I know I'll be coming back to this one in the future to re-read my favorites.