The Good: I love retold fairy tales, especially when they twist and tweak and turn inside out. You may remember that from my post about the TV show Once Upon A Time. Take something you think is familiar, look at it from a new direction, what new truths are there?
Most of these tales live in a world that is both modern and fairy tale. The first one is The Stepsisters, from Cinderella, and begins “I write this on a brailler, a kind of typewriter/ for the blind.” Like some (but not all) of these stories, it takes the viewpoint of a secondary character (the stepsisters) and makes references that are both non-fairy tale (a brailler) and classic (the birds pecking out their eyes.) It gives a different perspective: “Mother turned us against our stepsister,/ belittling her.”
My favorite of the short tales in Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses is Hansel and Gretel, perhaps because I’ve never quite liked the father: “Their parents want to kill them./ Not the father so much, but he’s a beaten dog./ A jellyfish, a limp noodle, a nobody.” Honestly, what type of father allows the abandonment of his children?
Readers who don’t just like fairy tales, but like when there is a bit of a different approach, will enjoy what Koertge does to old favorites.