Emma Donoghue

Old Tales in New Skins

Kissing the Witch

In Kissing the Witch, Emma Donoghue (author of the Man Booker and Orange prize shortlisted novel Room) unwinds thirteen fairy tales and writes them anew: Cinderella forsakes the handsome prince and runs off with the fairy godmother, Beauty discovers the Beast behind the mask is not so very different from the face she sees in the mirror, and Snow White is awakened from slumber by the bittersweet fruit of an unnamed desire. In these stories, Emma Donoghue reveals heroines young and old in unexpected alliances - sometimes treacherous, sometimes erotic, but always courageous. Told with luminous voices that shimmer with sensuality and truth, these age-old characters shed their antiquated cloaks to travel a seductive new landscape, radiantly transformed.

2.5stars 
did not really live up to my expectations

Izza

3.5 // I think I was expecting something else, and so I was a little bit disappointed. I'll have to revisit at some point! I really enjoy the stories though.

Eva Korosec

This is a lovely book, with an incredible twist on the fairy tales we all grew up with. I will say that I did not like all of them as much as I could, but some of them made me only stare in awe, specifically The Tale of the Shoe, The Tale of the Rose, The Tale of the Needle, The Tale of the Voice, and, of course, The Tale of the Kiss. 

The book is also written in such a beautiful style, with every word picked ever so precisely, taking me back in a marvelous world of wonder with each story. However, the thing that impressed me the most was the lack of magic involved, and how very authentically every story was told, as if it happened to normal people, where no one poisoned any apples, not really, nor was anyone truly a beast, nor was a mermaid given legs. They were the stories we have heard and loved growing up, and they were ordinary without losing that spark of magic that tied the stories together. Truly wonderful.

Kwan Ann Tan

An easy read, I finished it in about an hour or so (?) I loved what Donoghue did to the stories, interlinking them and changing them up completely-- like magical realism, and so much more feminist focused! <3

Grace O'Callaghan

*2.5 ⭐️

I’m so disappointed that I didn’t love this. Based on the premise of feminist and queer twists of classic fairytales, it sounded right up my alley. But alas you can’t always predict what you’re going to love.

I found the way the stories were changed to be not that original. Inherently these are retellings so of course they’re not going to be unique, but my problem is that they don’t stand on their own. Unless you know the source material, you won’t be interested in the tales. There’s nothing that hooks you because unless you know the original story, you don’t know what’s being changed that makes it different. 

Another issue I had was that all the stories were so predictable. There’s a clear pattern of the female villains getting with the female lead of the story. So once you read the first few stories you’ve read them all.

All of the stories are also so forgettable because not a lot about them was changed except to give the female characters a bit more agency and make it gay.

Overall, I can see why some people like this, but this just didn’t work for me. I can’t give it lower than 2.5 stars because I just have such lukewarm feelings on this book. I prefer to reserve two stars for books that I feel a little more strongly towards. I also do very much appreciate that this book was written twenty years ago and that Emma Donoghue wrote about women loving women when it wasn’t as common to write gay characters.

Akanksha Chattopadhyay

The last story was worth five stars and more. But save for that, and the way the beauty-and-the-beast tale was concluded, the book failed to impress me as I had expected. Donoghue's prose, though, deserves a bow.

Kissing the Witch Old Tales in New Skins

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