Top Ten Tuesdays is an original and weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.
Top Ten Books For Readers Who Like ________
This week on Top Ten Tuesdays, it looks like we get to sort of choose our own topic. To be honest, I don't really like these, because I can't really come up with my own topics. And for this week, I wasn't sure what topic to choose to fill in the blank above.
Of course, in the end, I settled on something pretty simple and easy. I like fantasies and I like fairy tale retellings. So...
Top Ten Books For Readers Who Like Fairy Tale Retellings
Disclaimer: These are suggestions as well as very subjective personal opinions. In other words, the books listed are really my more favorite selections in the Fairy Tale/ Fairy Tale Retellings genre.
by Shannon Hale
Shannon Hale is a pretty standard name in the Young Adult fantasy and fairy tale genre. She is a very good writer, incorporating background characters and side anecdotes as if they were just as significant as the main story, in a way in which we feel like we just haven't gotten to that story yet.
Book of a Thousand Days is one of my favorite young adult books of all time. The Goose Girl was one of the first two Shannon Hale books I picked up at a Target sale because I thought the cover was really pretty and the summary on the back was interesting. This was way back before my internet book networking days of Goodreads, BookLikes, Fictfact or even Amazon.
Book of a Thousand Days is based on Maid Malean from the Grimm Brothers.
The Goose Girl is based on the the fairy tale by the same name.
by Gail Carson Levine
We all probably know Ella Enchanted best as the movie adaptation starring Anne Hathaway... at least that's how I had learned about the story so many years ago. While the movie was excellent, the book has its own beauty to it as well. Both of the Gail Carson Levine books are more geared towards Middle Grade than it is Young Adult. And to be honest, Fairest is really my favorite of the two Gail Carson Levine books I've read.
Both of these books take place in the same world.
Ella Enchanted is based on Cinderella.
Fairest is based on Snow White.
Splintered by A.G. Howard
Shadows on the Moon by Zoe Marriott
Splintered and Shadows on the Moon are both more recent young adult retellings that I enjoy a lot, both with their own unique twists; both were pleasant and surprisingly more enjoyable than I expected. Both are written very well, and Shadows on the Moon has a lot of beautiful imagery.
Splintered is technically not a fairy tale retelling, though it is a retelling of a classically known story. It is the first book in a trilogy... though, to be honest, I felt it would have worked quite well as a stand alone.
Splintered is based on Alice in Wonderland with a darker twist.
Shadows on the Moon sort of has a Cinderella base crossed with Memoirs of a Geisha... or so the promo tags say, but I feel like there's more to it than that. I just can't put my finger on it.
Heart's Blood by Juliet Marillier
The Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey
Heart's Blood is an extremely well written retelling and my first Juliet Marillier book that got me hooked to this author. The Fairy Godmother is the first in a series called Five Hundred Kingdoms of which I truly do enjoy the magic system, concept, and fantasy world. Both authors are excellent writers with their own unique style of prose and ways of conveying descriptions and character development.
While The Fairy Godmother isn't the best book in the world (and DID in fact start off quite slowly), the world of Five Hundred Kingdoms is well-created and fascinating.
Heart's Blood is based on Beauty and the Beast.
The Fairy Godmother starts off with a Cinderella base, but much like the rest of the Five Hundred Kingdoms books, begins to involve a mish-mash of different fairy tales to further the rest of the story.
by Marissa Meyer
Currently a very popular futuristic sci-fi series, The Lunar Chronicles is based off of different popular fairy tales. With a creative, unique world and an ongoing conflict, the series is written well and enjoyable with some well-created characters.
Cinder is (obviously) based off of Cinderella.
Scarlet has its basis with Little Red Riding Hood.
The rest of the Lunar Chronicles series also includes Cress (book 3), which is based off of Rapunzel, and Winter (book 4), which is based off of Snow White. The entire root of the Lunar Chronicles series is mainly based on the whole princess and evil stepmother/evil queen trope. I haven't read the rest of the books yet, so I can't quite critique whether they are recommendable.
~~ Honorable Mentions ~~
The Little Android - a Lunar Chronicles novella by Marissa Meyer
The Little Android is a novella that is part of the Lunar Chronicles world based off of The Little Mermaid. It is one of my favorite novellas as of present, well-written with a bittersweet ideal and conclusion.
The Sleeping Beauty by Mercedes Lackey
The Sleeping Beauty obviously has it's roots in the Sleeping Beauty tale, but it also includes several other fairy tale tropes as well as some Greek and Norse mythology devices scattered throughout. It is my favorite of the Five Hundred Kingdoms books mainly because of the nonsensical, yet uniquely twisted humor that had a hand in making me laugh out loud several times. Why it's only an Honorable Mention has to do with the fact that the story line is kind of haphazard and had too many converging plot lines; and I'm not certain whether other people would find the same things humorous that I find humorous.
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