Grimmer Revisionist Fairy Tales, Fables, and Nursery Rhymes Book Review

Full disclosure: I was given an ARC of this book from Stress Free Book Marketing in exchange for an honest review.

Content warning: this book review mentions drug use and eating disorders.

Like many people, I grew up with fairy tales, fables, and nursery rhymes. I heard these stories so much that I actually want them to be subverted in some ways. Fortunately, I read a book recently that did just that. It’s called Grimmer Revisionist Fairy Tales, Fables, and Nursery Rhymes by Marissa Carter, and it’s a wonderful send up of those tales that’s primarily for adults. 

 Grimmer Revisionist Fairy Tales, Fables, and Nursery Rhymes is exactly what one would expect while looking at a title like this. It’s the tales that one read as a kid, but with modern twists, witty jokes, and a bit of cheeky irreverence. They may start off sweet, but they’ll get mischievous, take left turns, and transform into a different story. This ain’t your childhood fairy tale collection, and that’s what makes it fun.

This anthology wasn’t kidding when it said that the beloved stories were going to take interesting directions. They veer off in some off-the-wall ways. For example, in Rapunzel, one would think that it would end with Rapunzel and the prince getting married and living happily ever after. In this version, without spoiling too much, I can say that it involves some pretty wacky stuff. I never knew where the stories would go, which made them all the more entertaining. 

Also, I enjoyed how the collection addressed society’s tendencies to over analyze the story elements and morals as well as to modernize the tales in ways that don’t always make sense. Each of the stories tackles these in extremely funny ways. For instance, the commentary on the nursery rhyme There’s Once Was An Old Lady in a Shoe involves how the old lady and her children are able to live in a shoe, or if it was a shoe in the first place. Later on, the nursery rhyme Tom the Piper’s Son – one that I’m actually not familiar with – gets political commentary from Mao Tse Tung, Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Richard Nixon. The dialogue is straight out of a Monty Python sketch.

This anthology is no doubt influenced by Shrek, yet I noticed some South Park elements in them too. In Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Goldilocks is said to have watched all the episodes of CSI and have bulimia. I’m convinced that Eric Cartman wrote that one. Also, in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Snow White has a cocaine problem, and one of the dwarves is named Horny. It makes me wonder why South Park didn’t do a send-up on famous fairy tales like The Simpsons and Family Guy did, but then again, South Park is not your traditional cartoon for adults.

My favorite stories in the anthology are Chicken Little, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and Three Little Pigs. I love how everything in Chicken Little gets over analyzed to the umpteenth degree, which captures the spirit of a tale involving the sky falling. In Snow White, they give the real reason how Snow White got her name, and it made me laugh very hard. Plus, I enjoyed how the evil queen would smash the mirror anytime it revealed that Snow White was still alive. Three Little Pigs had the wolf eating the pigs whose houses he blew down, which makes me wonder why he didn’t do that in previous retellings. Also, the punch line was fabulous. 

Does every joke work? No. For example, in Chicken Little, there’s a quip about how Ducky Lucky studied at Donald Duck University, and it shouldn’t be confused for McDonald’s Hamburger University. Those are two very distinct intellectual properties that no average person would ever have a hard time identifying. Regardless, many of the jokes land with flying colors including the ones referenced in the paragraph above.

 Grimmer Revisionist Fairy Tales, Fables, and Nursery Rhymes by Marissa Carter is a funny send-up on everyone’s favorite childhood tales. It goes in directions that no one would really expect, and it makes fun of people who over analyze and try to modernize the timeless tales. This isn’t for children as it has some mature content. I would recommend this to adults who have a twisted sense of humor as well as love Shrek; South Park; and above all, fairy tales, fables, and nursery rhymes. Get this book, and one will live in their own version of happily ever after.

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