Mirror, Mirror

These five short stories are easy to read and completely non-challenging. Riffs on classic fairy tales, they are mildly entertaining; take them to the beach, because it won’t be much of a loss if the book gets wet. Story one is a Crime/Thriller story of Hansel and Gretel. Twin children are kidnapped by their mother’s evil homicidal cannibalistic twin sister and the tough-as-nails survivor woman cop races against time to rescue them, fighting her own past demons along the way. The next four stories, in a dramatic shift, are cute little romances. Story two contorts the story of Goldilocks into an early nineteenth-century castle, where a respected servant maid gets in trouble for trying to find the perfect fit, in beds and in love. Sleeping Beauty is re-imagined as a selfish, womanizing playboy ‘vanished’ by an evil fairy; he can’t regain his corporeality until he learns to truly love (a la Disney’s Beauty and the Beast). Cinderella of course has to be represented, and is in a stunningly forced and superficial love story set in the Emerald Isle. I did, however, appreciate the interesting choice of ‘The Little Matchgirl’ as a basis for expansion in ‘The Christmas Comet’ (this one did have a happy ending, unlike the Hans Christian Andersen original.)