Written by Sowmya Gopi
This beautifully illustrated book is as lovely as its cover is. Trust Nikita Gill to turn classic fairytales into verses, which are beautifully written and creatively expressed into words that you will get carried away with. She digs deeper into our everyday favourite fairytale character, both villains and heroes and presents us with a new side of theirs.
She tells the world of how no damsel in distress ever needed a prince to save her and turns the helpless heroine into an empowered, free woman. The villains we all loved to hate are turned into a flawed human being who is simply misunderstood. The women in here are strong and unapologetic and they have wisdom to share and lessons to teach about identity, power, acceptance, and strength. The classic fairytales skilfully combined with the subjects of empowerment, love, feminism, abuse, and mental illness. It’s refreshing to read a new take on all the childhood stories we have been told. It is powerful, thoughtful yet so tender. The book is filled with magic, fire and truth, waiting to be told. The different angle she gave each tale is simply fascinating and worth a read.
Here are a few quotes from the book that might give you an idea:
“Definitions of you are for you to make and for you alone.”
“Beauty without kindness and bravery is just a pretty, empty shell, my dear. And you can find plenty of those on the beach. People use them to decorate their rooms. So I hope you aspire to be so much more than just beautiful. I hope you aspire to be so much more than a pretty little thing that decorates the room you walk into.”
“I exist. Outside of being a mother, a wife, a sister, a daughter, I exist. I exist as a human first, as a being that experiences joy and suffering, beauty and learning, life and tragedy. I exist because the universe chose to put me here for a purpose higher than my relation to men. I exist because a wise old woman gave me a gift and now magic runs through my veins. So the problem is not my existence as half dragon, half girl. The problem is how you perceive it as so small, you do not believe I can exist at all apart from through my bonds with men.”
Fierce Fairytales is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers.
Will you be reading Fierce Fairytales? Have you read it already? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
Poet, writer, and Instagram sensation Nikita Gill returns with a collection of fairytales poetically retold for a new generation of women.
Traditional fairytales are rife with cliches and gender stereotypes: beautiful, silent princesses; ugly, jealous, and bitter villainesses; girls who need rescuing; and men who take all the glory.
But in this rousing new prose and poetry collection, Nikita Gill gives Once Upon a Time a much-needed modern makeover. Through her gorgeous reimagining of fairytale classics and spellbinding original tales, she dismantles the old-fashioned tropes that have been ingrained in our minds. In this book, gone are the docile women and male saviors. Instead, lines blur between heroes and villains. You will meet fearless princesses, a new kind of wolf lurking in the concrete jungle, and an independent Gretel who can bring down monsters on her own.
Complete with beautifully hand-drawn illustrations by Gill herself, Fierce Fairytales is an empowering collection of poems and stories for a new generation.
