Jenny's Top Ten Favorite Retellings

Top Ten Tuesday is a feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week was a freebie and, as Lesley Anne is currently unavailable, I decided to chose one of my all-time favorite genres: retellings. I will read practically anything (except erotica) if it is a retelling of a myth or fairytale. The dichotomy of beauty and suffering is so much clearer in these stories than in 99% of what is written today. J.R.R. Tolkien's essay, "On Fairy-Stories", sums up the necessity of these stories. This quote, though long, hits right at the heart of these stories:

"The consolation of fairy stories, the joy of the happy ending; or more correctly, the good catastrophe, the sudden, joyous "turn" (for there is no true end to a fairy tale); this joy, which is one of the things that fairy stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially escapist or fugitive. In it's fairy tale or other world setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace, never to be counted on to reoccur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, or sorrow and failure, the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance. It denies, (in the face of much evidence if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief."

Bet you didn't realize how incredible fairytales were, did you?





1. Till We Have Faces | C.S. Lewis

{A retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche}
This is, hands down, my favorite book. I think it might be because I see so much of myself in Orual. It is a beautiful retelling of the myth in Lewis's inimitable style.







2. The Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series | Rick Riordan
{A retelling of Greek mythology}
I never tire of talking about how much I love this series. Riordan's attention to detail and the amount of research that went into these books is second to none. Percy and Annabeth are on my all-time favorite characters list.






3. Black Ships | Jo Graham

{A retelling of the Aeneid}
I ran across this book while browsing Amazon one day and I am so glad I did. I read this book before I actually read the Aeneid so I did not appreciate, fully, how wonderful it was until I was familiar with Virgil's epic. This story is told from the POV of the priestess who goes along with them once Troy is destroyed. It is fantastic. Please, put this on your TBR list.






4. Deerskin | Robin McKinley
{A retelling of the fairytale "Donkeyskin"}
This is a hard retelling because the subject matter is not for the faint of heart. It deals with the ugliness of human nature (stress ugliness), and it can be hard to read at times. There is so much beauty to be found there, though, that it is well-worth the read. Don't expect to feel warm and fuzzy at the end, but expect to be humbled by the resilience of the human spirit.






5. The Scorpio Races | Maggie Stiefvater
 {A retelling of the myth of the water horse}
This is, so far, my favorite book I have read this year. Hannah, a fellow blogger, reviewed it here and it caught my eye. The premise is unique and it is about horses. What more could you want? This, to me, is YA at its absolute best.







6. Ella Enchanted | Gail Carson Levine
{A retlling of Cinderella}
I believe this book is why I love retellings so much. Levine does such wonderful job with this heroine. She is believable. For further gushing over this book, see the blog post here.







7. Daughter of the Forest | Juliet Marillier
{A retelling of "The Six Swans"}
This is book was another one that was hard to read in spots but was so, so good. It makes you want to live at SevenWaters and be a part of the magical world that Marillier has created. Again, as with Deerskin, the beauty of the human spirit is showcased by the difficulties Sorcha must endure.







8. The Once and Future King | T.H. White
{A retelling of King Arthur}
This is one of my top ten favorite books of all time. It is a fleshing-out of the the Arthurian legend and its surrounding stories while, at the same time, managing to be a social commentary on the 20th century. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.






9. A Court of Thorns and Roses | Sarah J. Maas
 {A retelling of Beauty and the Beast, Tamlin, "East of the Sun, West of the Moon"}
There will be a longer blog post on this book, so I won't say much other than I liked this book so much more than I was expecting.









10. The Princess Bride | William Goldman
{A retelling — satire — of fairytales}
This is satire at its finest. Goldman is making fun of all sorts of tropes in fairytales and does it well. You will be laughing out loud at parts, so make sure you are not reading it somewhere where it would be embarrassing to draw attention to yourself.

Jenny Reviews: Mortal Heart + The Blood of Olympus

I don't know about y'all, but I am always apprehensive about the last book in a series. The last book has the potential to make or break a series for me, even if I've loved the previous books. One of the best things about a series is the journey you get to take with the characters. If the last book does not complete the story to my satisfaction (which I realize is completely subjective), then I feel as if the journey has been a waste (Do not ask me my feelings on the Hunger Games Trilogy). I decided to review two books that came out recently because they are the last book in their respective series. Think of it as Two-For-One Day here at Pathological Readers :)

Book 1:

Mortal Heart by Robin LaFevers
Release Date: 4 November 2014
Page Count: 464
Genre: Historical Fiction, Fantasy
Target Audience: YA
Series: His Fair Assassin #3
Source and Format: Purchased; Kindle eBook

Summary (From Goodreads)
Annith has watched her gifted sisters at the convent come and go, carrying out their dark dealings in the name of St. Mortain, patiently awaiting her own turn to serve Death. But her worst fears are realized when she discovers she is being groomed by the abbess as a Seeress, to be forever sequestered in the rock and stone womb of the convent. Feeling sorely betrayed, Annith decides to strike out on her own.

She has spent her whole life training to be an assassin. Just because the convent has changed its mind doesn't mean she has… 

 


Notes on Mortal Heart
This was a very satisfying conclusion for me! This trilogy features a different protagonist in each book, but each one shows up in the others' books. The leading ladies are all assassin nuns, of a sort. Their father is the Breton god of Death and they are raised to be his instruments here on earth. The book is set in 15th century Brittany, which is in France. The conflict revolves around France wanting to subsume Brittany into its own land. This third book is about Annith, who has been raised in the convent, unlike the other girls who make their way there. She is being kept in the convent rather than sent out on missions and she wants to know why. I really liked this book, even more than I thought I would. LaFevers resolves both the conflict between France and Brittany and the conflict between Annith and the convent nicely. I will say that the solution for the France/Brittany conflict was a bit far-fetched (and is what kept me from giving it 5 stars) BUT it was also plausible within the world that LaFevers created so it was not completely unbelievable. It was just a bit too convenient for me. The love interest in this book is also... different. I enjoyed it but I could see where some readers would have a hard time with it. Overall, this book was a wonderful way to the end the trilogy. Well done, Robin LaFevers!

Book 2:

The Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan
Release Date: 7 October 2014
Page Count: 516
Genre: Fantasy
Target Audience: YA, Middle Grades
Series: The Heroes of Olympus #5
Source and Format: Purchased; Kindle eBook

Summary (From Goodreads)
Though the Greek and Roman crewmembers of the Argo II have made progress in their many quests, they still seem no closer to defeating the earth mother, Gaea. Her giants have risen—all of them—and they're stronger than ever. They must be stopped before the Feast of Spes, when Gaea plans to have two demigods sacrificed in Athens. She needs their blood—the blood of Olympus—in order to wake.

The demigods are having more frequent visions of a terrible battle at Camp Half-Blood. The Roman legion from Camp Jupiter, led by Octavian, is almost within striking distance. Though it is tempting to take the Athena Parthenos to Athens to use as a secret weapon, the friends know that the huge statue belongs back on Long Island, where it "might" be able to stop a war between the two camps.

The Athena Parthenos will go west; the Argo II will go east. The gods, still suffering from multiple personality disorder, are useless. How can a handful of young demigods hope to persevere against Gaea's army of powerful giants? As dangerous as it is to head to Athens, they have no other option. They have sacrificed too much already. And if Gaea wakes, it is game over.

Notes on The Blood of Olympus
This book. I gave it 3 stars on Goodreads because it was just mediocre to me. For those of you who have not read the series, each book is narrated by 3 of more of the characters. This is cool because you get to really know the characters since Riordan gives you a glimpse into their heads. This woks really well when it is only three characters; not so much when you have 4+ narrators. There were too many characters in this book. There were two story lines that were going on simultaneously. There were two different battles with multiple characters. It was just A LOT. The book felt... busy. Chaotic. It did do a nice job of wrapping up most of the questions everyone had. It also provided a happy ending for most everyone. I think Riordan bit off a bit more than he could chew and it was more messy than his normal style. This series started out really great but the more characters that were added, the harder it was to enjoy the story because everyone's separate stories kept getting in the way. This series did not end on a high note, but it was not also the worst.


Hope you enjoyed Two-For-One Day!