Daniel Egnéus

I thought I had already read the original, yet this one wasn't marked as read. While listening to an audio version I did some Googling and learned I had read the Charles Perrault version, written 100 years earlier. What's interesting is that I had thought the Brothers Grimm wrote "original" (as far as publishing goes) dark fairy tales, but Charles Perrault is the true king of early dark fairy tales. The Brothers Grimm version is likely the one you heard as a kid and it has some show more good-over-evil triumph compared to the "horrible things happened that would never happen in real life but here's the moral" Perrault style. show less

I gotta say, once I learned of the original version of this tale, I came to like it much better than the much lighter one that the little kids were told about/raised on, though it's also fun to read various author's take on this old tale in whatever genre.

Luisa's version is less bloodthirsty metaphor for the female sexual coming-of-age (of course, she's four) and more just bloodthirsty. The axe scene is re-enacted repeatedly and lovingly, although now tht I think about it that may be more about tickles.

3.5 ⭐️

Fashion illustration meets Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette meets fairy tale.

The art is gorgeous, but the story retelling is pretty bare and doesn't do a lot to elevate things to the same level of the illustration. Still a fun, lightning-fast read.