Look, I had to immediately find another Victoria Goddard work, ok? This one is an action-packed novella, told like a fairy tale. In this retelling of the Bluebeard story, three sisters go forth to find their destiny; the first becomes a weaver of magic, the second a fierce warrior, and the third is swept away by a god who takes her as a wife. As the third daughter slowly becomes suspicious of her new husband’s ultimate motives, her sisters unite to ride to her rescue. Great strong female characters obv, and the language was just beautiful.
Tag: genre-retelling
The Chosen and the Beautiful, by Nghi Vo
This was amazing, a treatment of The Great Gatsby which recasts socialite Jordan Baker as a queer adoptee from Vietnam. As a visibly Asian person in white spaces, her character traits from the original — her avoidance of attachment, her blithe dismissal of others’ opinions — all make sense from someone preemptively protecting herself from racism. As if that weren’t enough, there is also magic, beautifully and lyrically presented: the weather responds to Daisy Buchanan’s emotions so that she moves through the world as literal pathetic fallacy; Jordan cuts paper dolls that come to life; Gatsby plies his guests with crystal glasses of literal demon’s blood. As for Nick Carraway… well, I won’t ruin it, but I will say this book had one of the best, most well-developed endings I’ve read in a while; it also contained delightful surprises, which was quite a feat considering that this book actually follows the original quite faithfully. Oh, and the writing was stunning.