Faraway: Fairy Tales for the Here and Now (audiobook)

My Thoughts: 

Amazon has a series of original stories using familiar fairy tale characters but putting a modern spin on it. Each of the these YA authors offers up a story: Rainbow Rowell, Nic Stone, Soman Chainani, Ken Liu, and Gayle Forman. 

In book form they are separate short stories with audio narration. But I listened to this together like an anthology of shorts with different narrators and sometimes multiple narrators. Each was eerily, disturbingly good in its own way, and every time I thought, this is the best one, another one sucked me in. 

I was going to write about my favorites, but of the five, four of the five were my favorites as I was listening to them. I will just write about the first one but if you have Sora for your class or school, and you can borrow the audio, these are great shorts for personal "reading" time.

"Prince and The Troll" is one of my favorites by Rainbow Rowell. Rowell does a great job with odd relationships like Fangirl and Pumpkinheads.  This story is about Adam, a human male (the troll female character, no name, calls him a prince) who meets a bridge troll in the mud when he drops his phone. There is something sinister about the ROAD, the wizard's ravens, the climate shifts and the weird tension tied to the mud, and the hedge. Then there are the seasonal menu changes of Starbucks. Super intriguing and tense. I don't want to try and spoil it, but I was waiting for claws and teeth to gnash and chomp. 

From the Publisher:

A charming everyman and a mysterious something-under-the-bridge cross paths in a short fairy tale by the number one New York Times bestselling author of Eleanor & Park and the Simon Snow series.

It’s fate when a man accidentally drops his phone off the bridge. It’s fortune when it’s retrieved by a friendly shape sloshing in the muck underneath. From that day forward, as they share a coffee every morning, an unlikely friendship blooms. Considering the reality for the man above, where life seems perfect, and that of the sharp-witted creature below, how forever after can a happy ending be?

From the Publisher:

Two anxious young lovers lost in the woods. A beckoning mansion in a dark clearing. A short modern-day retelling of Hansel and Gretel by the number one New York Times bestselling author of Dear Martin.

It’s bad enough that Hazel and Gray have defied the demands of Hazel’s foul stepfather. The Monster has forbidden their romance. Now they’ve awakened in the forest, phones dead, hours past curfew. But not far away is a grand estate in the middle of nowhere. The door is open. In this short story about choosing your own path, the fury of the Monster that awaits them back home may be nothing compared to what lies ahead.

 

From the Publisher:

The victims are the most popular girls in school, each murdered and arranged in a grim fairy-tale tableau. To find the killer, rookie detective Callum Pederson has gone undercover where the Princes hold court. He’s found enough secrets among the bros to bring them in for questioning—but he could very well get lost in the games the Princes play.

From the Publisher:

Touch the past or wash it away? Two sisters have a choice in this unforgettable short story of everyday magic and the power of memory by the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author Ken Liu.

Gui is a professional cleaner at A Fresh Start, scrubbing away the unpleasant layers of memory that build up on the personal objects of his customers. Memory-blind himself, he can’t feel those wounds. Clara can, and she prefers them irretrievable. Until her sister, Beatrice, ultrasensitive to memory, raises one that could change Clara’s mind. For Gui, the past is gone. For Clara and Beatrice, deciding what to remember reaches to the heart of their shared history.

From the Publisher:

The reviled villainesses of Snow White, Cinderella, and Rapunzel team up to set the record straight in a subversively funny short story by the number one New York Times bestselling author of If I Stay.

Envious queen? Evil stepmother? Kidnapping hag? Elsinora, Gwendolyn, and Marguerite are through with warts-and-all tabloids, ugly lies, and the three ungrateful brats who pitted them against each other and the world. But maybe there’s more to the stories than even the Wickeds know. Is it time to finally get revenge? After all, they’re due for a happily-enough-ever-after. Even if they have to write it themselves.

Up All Night: 13 Stories Between Sunset and Sunrise

 

My Thoughts:

These short stories by YA authors are the perfect book 99 out of 100 for the year because they are from trusted YA authors and the stories are just twisty enough to enjoy the short story genre. If at the end of the story I am left saying WHAT???!!! that's a good sign. 

The short stories are as diverse in genre and character, but they all have a little bit of weird, which is expected in the wee hours of the night and early morning. Everything happens on one night so although we sometimes get a back story, the pacing is very dynamic.

Like chefs that have a distinct taste profile, many of these authors stick with their genres, but there are some surprises.  I was sure Maureen Goo would write a romance,  but she wrote a short story about three friends who lost their relationship along the way and one of the friends goes through a lot of trouble to conjure the past in "Like Before." It is not her usual romance, but it is still sweet and sad. 

From the Publisher:

When everyone else goes to bed, the ones who stay up feel like they’re the only people in the world. As the hours tick by deeper into the night, the familiar drops away and the unfamiliar beckons. Adults are asleep, and a hush falls over the hum of daily life. Anything is possible.

It’s a time for romance and adventure. For prom night and ghost hunts. It’s a time for breaking up, for falling in love—for finding yourself.

Stay up all night with these thirteen short stories from bestselling and award-winning YA authors like Karen McManus, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nina LaCour, and Brandy Colbert, as they take readers deep into these rarely seen, magical hours.

Full contributor list: Brandy Colbert, Kathleen Glasgow, Maurene Goo, Tiffany D. Jackson, Amanda Joy, Nina LaCour, Karen M. McManus, Anna Meriano, Marieke Nijkamp, Laura Silverman, Kayla Whaley, Julian Winters, Francesca Zappia.