Snow White Learns Witchcraft: Stories and Poems
Theodora Goss
A young woman hunts for her wayward shadow at the school where she first learned magic—while another faces a test she never studied for as ice envelopes the world. The tasks assigned a bookish boy lead him to fateful encounters with lizards, owls, trolls and a feisty, sarcastic cat. A bear wedding is cause for celebration, the spinning wheel and the tower in the briar hedge get to tell their own stories, and a kitchenmaid finds out that a lost princess is more than she seems. The sea witch reveals what she hoped to gain when she took the mermaid's voice. A wiser Snow White sets out to craft herself a new tale. In these eight stories and twenty-three poems, World Fantasy Award winner Theodora Goss retells and recasts fairy tales by Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, and Oscar Wilde. Sometimes harrowing, sometimes hilarious, always lyrical, the works gathered in Snow White Learns Witchcraft re-center and empower the women at the heart of these timeless narratives.
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"Fairy tales are another kind of Bible, for those who know how to read them."
Snow White Learns Witchcraft is a collection of poems and short fiction by Theodora Goss, an author probably best known for her mystery/sci fi genre blender Athena Club series. As implied by the title, all of the stories and poetry in Snow White Learns Witchcraft are related to fairy tales. Many of the stories will feel familiar to anyone who grew up with even the tame versions by Disney but she also includes some that seemed more Eastern European influenced. As a side note, many of these stories and poems have been published in other collections but are collected here in a single volume.
I've always loved fairy tales of all kinds and particularly when an author takes known fairy tales and provides a twist that makes the story feel new again. Snow White Learns Witchcraft also has the bonus of having a more feminist take on traditional stories that I really liked. Even better, it does so without feeling gimmicky or like that facet is more important than the story itself. Goss does an excellent job of empowering the women in her stories while still making the story a living, breathing entity with compelling characters. While I enjoyed The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter, this collection of stories was much more to my taste. I didn't love all of the stories and poetry but unlike a lot of collections, there weren't any that I disliked or which bored me. Since there's more than thirty stories and poems in the collection, I'll just mention a few that I particularly loved. In particular, Blanchefleur, Red as Blood and White as Bone and The Other Thea were really great. I loved these three in particular because while I'm guessing they're based on stories I'm less familiar with, they felt familiar and old, just what I want out of a fairy tale. Overall, I really enjoyed this collection and it's one that I'll definitely be recommending to others who enjoy fairy tales as much as I do.
Thanks to both NetGalley and Mythic Delirium Books for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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