4 stars
| While this book was not quite what I expected, I still really enjoyed it. Rather than a collection of poetry that retells famous fairy tales (my expectation), this was instead a book of poetry that looks at fairy tales through a contemporary lens to comment on various topics such as eating disorders, double standards, societal expectations and standards of beauty, and sexuality in the modern world. The poems create a sense of haunting awe, challenging the reader to rethink everything they thought they knew about the world around them and the fairy tales they grew up with. Paired with gorgeous and thought-provoking photographs, this book is as lovely as it is harrowing. These aren’t cushy, comfy, feel-good poems. These are poems that stab at the seams of society and ask the reader to critically examine the outside world. While some of the lines felt crass, especially in terms of sensitive topics like eating disorders, the book on the whole provided an eye-opening view of growing up female. Presented in caustic, mystifying, heartbreaking, magical language, these poems created a real experience. Goodreads |