I've always loved fairy tales. The happily ever after, and the fact that you know good will defeat evil all the time, the joy of the good character winning out over the bad, it's a great way to make yourself feel good after a long day, week or month. People reference these "classic" stories all the time in literally any form of popular entertainment. Songs, stories, poems, they all draw on a fairy tale occasionally.
And you know what? That's great! It's fun to read a book based on a story you know, to see the twists and turns in a story you know like the back of your hand. Yeah, sometimes they can get repetitive, but you don't always want a book to challenge you. Sometimes you want a book to read to make you feel good. Of course, not all fairy tale retellings are the feel good type (looking at you Heartless), but here's a list of three of my favourite fairy tale retellings in no particular order, in case you want a taste of your own.
1) The Lunar Chronicles By: Marissa Meyer
This is one of the series where it blends perfectly between genres. It seamlessly weaves itself between dystopia, romance and science fiction (I say I don't read too much sci-fi, but here we are). Over the course of four books (plus a little companion novel that will tear out your heartstrings), we get to see Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and Snow White all tied together in a beautifully sweeping story, with enough of each fairy tale for it to seem delightfully familiar yet somehow also new and shiny at the same time. I love this series so much, and they're definitely a good read if you want a riveting series.
2) The Twisted Tale Series By: Liz Braswell, Jen Calonita, Farrah Rochon, Mari Mancusi and Elizabeth Lim. (Each book only has one author)
These are standalone novels, each based on a different disney film. They each choose one of the films and add a "what if" twist to it. These are best for people who've never read a fairy tale spin off and aren't sure if they enjoy it, mostly because they use the most popular version of any fairy tale, which is the disney one. My favourite is "Reflection", which is a twist on Mulan, but that doesn't mean I don't like the other ones.
3) The Rise of The Empress series By: Julie C Dao !Mature!
I'm ashamed to admit I didn't know the title of this series. I had to google it. Weird titles aside, I promise you will not forget the names of the books because they're so good. Literally the tattooed into your brain, will probably give you nightmares kind of good. This one is mature, but it's an amazing retelling of the Evil Queen from Snow White (A Forest of a Thousand Lanterns), followed by a retelling of Snow White (Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix). I have a thing for books written about familiar stories and meshed with different types of mythology, probably because I was obsessed with Percy Jackson for a long time when I was younger. I'm still obsessed with Percy Jackson, but that's not the point. It has some major dark themes, but if you're comfortable with that, this series delves deep into a story about a girl who gambles too much with "the dark side", and shows you her descent down to evil, followed by people fixing what her evil has done to the world. It's amazing and I wish you all the best if you read it.
And there they are! My three favourite fairy tale retellings! I hope you enjoy them!
-Teso