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49th out of 56 books
—
132 voters
Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses
Yes it's blue and Yes it tickles and Yes
he's had a lot of wives
and nobody knows what happened to them
but he's fun at the party and omigod
that castle!
Once upon a time, a strung-out match girl sold CDs to stoners. Twelve impetuous sisters escaped Daddy’s clutches to jiggle and cavort and wear out their shoes. Bluebeard's latest wife discovered she'd married a serial killer....more
he's had a lot of wives
and nobody knows what happened to them
but he's fun at the party and omigod
that castle!
Once upon a time, a strung-out match girl sold CDs to stoners. Twelve impetuous sisters escaped Daddy’s clutches to jiggle and cavort and wear out their shoes. Bluebeard's latest wife discovered she'd married a serial killer....more
Hardcover, 88 pages
Published
July 10th 2012
by Candlewick Press
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To enjoy this book, you probably need two things: a strong gut and a wicked sense of humor. I have both, so almost all of this book was an absolute pleasure for me to read, if only because it was so very darkly amusing. Free verse poetry is my favorite kind of poetry, and every single one is as creative a satire as the last. Things these days are going back to darker and edgier all the time and this does just that to all the favorite fairy tales, but in a way that relates to now--mentions of GPS...more
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Ron Koertge's free verse writing adds a modern, older audience twist to the usual fairy tales we all know. He includes brief perspectives or versions of Cinderella, the Frog Prince, and as the title would have it, Little Red Riding Hood. I could not help but laugh as I read through the piece titled " Red Riding Hood, Home at Last, Tells her Mother What Happened." In this free verse, the reader comes to know more about Red Riding Hood and her thoughts behind her actions. She is definitely not a l...more
Gory, dark, and captivating, Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses is not for the faint-hearted. What immediately captivated my attention was the gorgeous (and kind of creepy) cover, as well as the fairy tale retelling side of it (for which I have a total Achilles Heel for.) Written in free verse poetry, you'll come across old favorites like Cinderella and The Ugly Duckling (retold in the sickest ways you can ever imagine) and several other not as well known stories like Bluebeard and Godfather...more
This is a truly original book-of-fairytales rendition. It provides narration for all of the famous (and some not so famous) fairytale characters from legend. They each take a turn telling their story, each example gruesome and completely new. Some of it is in verse, some in documentary-style explanations, others in brief monologues--all are provided with sinister black-and-white illustrations. Koertge keeps the original fairytale themes, gore and all.
I know Ron Koertge through his previous nove...more
I know Ron Koertge through his previous nove...more
Originally posted on my blog: http://libraryladyhylary.blogspot.com ! Check it out for more reviews!
Written in free verse, this macabre collection of poems and creepy illustrations includes twenty-three retellings of classic fairy tales. Featured tales range from “Cinderella,” told from the perspective of the stepsisters, “Hansel and Gretel,” who want revenge against the father that allowed them to be abandoned in the woods, and a monologue from “Red Riding Hood” who is relaying what happened t...more
Written in free verse, this macabre collection of poems and creepy illustrations includes twenty-three retellings of classic fairy tales. Featured tales range from “Cinderella,” told from the perspective of the stepsisters, “Hansel and Gretel,” who want revenge against the father that allowed them to be abandoned in the woods, and a monologue from “Red Riding Hood” who is relaying what happened t...more
If you like your fairy tales warm and chaste with no pesky disturbing sexual undertones, then dear God in heaven run from this book as fast as your innocent little legs will carry you!
Ron Koertge re-imagines a whole herd of fairy tales in wildy creative free verse diddies. Some will make you squirm. Some will make you laugh out loud. Some will make you wish you had some penicillin. All of them are inspired little explosions of unique craft that do not play nicely. At all.
The "fairy tales aren't...more
Ron Koertge re-imagines a whole herd of fairy tales in wildy creative free verse diddies. Some will make you squirm. Some will make you laugh out loud. Some will make you wish you had some penicillin. All of them are inspired little explosions of unique craft that do not play nicely. At all.
The "fairy tales aren't...more
My first read-through of this modern retelling of many well known fairytales left me a little cold. Okay, they're clever, but maybe a little too clever, too edgy, too precious. So, believe it or not, I decided to give it a second chance. What? I'm sure I've done that once or twice in my life.
So the second time through, the stories sort of grew on me. There were subtleties I missed first time, probably when I was rolling my eyes. I wasn't in love with all the stories and I was confused by the inc...more
So the second time through, the stories sort of grew on me. There were subtleties I missed first time, probably when I was rolling my eyes. I wasn't in love with all the stories and I was confused by the inc...more
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Macabre -- that in all its permutations is the best word to describe both the fairy tale based poems and the art that accompanies them in this slim volume. Koertge basically took the original tales and both updated them and chose to dwell on their most unsavory aspects-- the eyes plucked out of the stepsisters eyes in Cinderella; the masochistic attraction part of Red Riding Hood's relationship to the Wolf and the bride's to Bluebeard. And even though the scissor cut art is done in black and whi...more
Lies, Knives and Girls in Red Dresses was refreshingly dark and, often times, shock-inducing. That said, I wasn't incredibly impressed with this book of twisted tales. I'm more of a happy ending, unicorns and butterflies type of girl, but I love a good blood-soaked horror story as much as the next person. Sometimes I get cavities from the all the rainbows and need a bit of roughage in my diet.
So some of the stories and poems in Koertege's book provided me with the perfect dose of gallows humor...more
So some of the stories and poems in Koertege's book provided me with the perfect dose of gallows humor...more
I found the art to be the most entertaining part of this book. The fairy tales - not so much.
Parts of them were alright, but most felt either rushed or poorly constructed, plot wise. The author took major poetic license, twisted the stories - which is what I expected - but rather than lending them intrigue or satire, they just were confusing and oh so desperately trying to be controversial or "edgy". You know, if you find incest and copius amounts of profanity to be hip.
In closing, it's a quic...more
Parts of them were alright, but most felt either rushed or poorly constructed, plot wise. The author took major poetic license, twisted the stories - which is what I expected - but rather than lending them intrigue or satire, they just were confusing and oh so desperately trying to be controversial or "edgy". You know, if you find incest and copius amounts of profanity to be hip.
In closing, it's a quic...more
Lies Knives and Girls in Red Dresses is a collection of dark, dark modern fairy tales. They are really dark and grim, I would say. For example, Red Riding Hood actually wanted to know what it's like to be swallowed whole. The stories are basically prose poems; they're written in stanzas, but flow like prose. Koertge was pretty creative, and had me inwardly and ironically chuckling. This is a slim little volume with many illustrations (which were amazing by the way), but it's certainly not for yo...more
More reviews at Rondo of a Possible World: YA Book Reviews
Short and entertaining, lyrical and heinous. Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses retells different fairy tales from Cinderella to Red Riding Hood all jam-packed in this short but savory book with really interesting but intriguing artistic cutout styles that go along with some of the fables. I for one found it as a bonus while reading.
I didn't really know what I was going to get when I fist requested the novel because my cover lusting...more
Short and entertaining, lyrical and heinous. Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses retells different fairy tales from Cinderella to Red Riding Hood all jam-packed in this short but savory book with really interesting but intriguing artistic cutout styles that go along with some of the fables. I for one found it as a bonus while reading.
I didn't really know what I was going to get when I fist requested the novel because my cover lusting...more
Jul 15, 2012
Sally Kruger
added it
Beware! This is not your normal fairy tale collection.
Author Ron Koertge recaps the action of some well-known tales, but he adds a twist...a dark, morbid twist. Readers will be hooked with the Once Upon a Time beginning, but they shouldn't expect the old standby ending of Lived Happily Ever After.
Each tale represented in the anthology highlights what, according to Koertge, likely happened after the last page was turned. Endings that include death, dismemberment, or lives continued but headed do...more
Author Ron Koertge recaps the action of some well-known tales, but he adds a twist...a dark, morbid twist. Readers will be hooked with the Once Upon a Time beginning, but they shouldn't expect the old standby ending of Lived Happily Ever After.
Each tale represented in the anthology highlights what, according to Koertge, likely happened after the last page was turned. Endings that include death, dismemberment, or lives continued but headed do...more
Dark, sometimes gory retellings of classic Fairytales. That about sums up Lies, Knives, and Girls In Red Dresses by Ron Koertge, with illustrations by Andrea Dezso.
The fairytales you hold near and dear to your heart are completely twisted and will open up your eyes to a darker side of storytelling. Inside you’ll find a different side to stories such as Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, The Frog Prince, The Princess and the pea, among others. Cleverly written, original, and delightfully en...more
The fairytales you hold near and dear to your heart are completely twisted and will open up your eyes to a darker side of storytelling. Inside you’ll find a different side to stories such as Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, The Frog Prince, The Princess and the pea, among others. Cleverly written, original, and delightfully en...more
This book is a compilation of twisted versions and bonus point of views from well known fairy tales. There are stories for Cinderella, The Little Match Girl, Rapunzel, Thumbelina, Beauty and the Beast, Twelve Dancing Princesses, Hansel and Gretel, The Ugly Duckling, Diamonds and Toads, The Robber Bridegroom, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, and other very recognizable tales. I did enjoy the dimension that these poems added to the original tales. But my major complaint would be the stark, cr...more
Jan 19, 2013
Cathie
rated it
2 of 5 stars
Shelves:
2013-reads,
you-ll-love-this-challenges,
fantasy,
fiction,
horror,
short-stories,
fairy-tale
Fairy tales NOT for children. Brothers Grimm tales retold in dark macabre, life is not sweet, think again if your head is up-your-fantasy-ass style!
I'm, not cool to admit this, more a fluffernutter, sap for a good ol' happy ending type gal. I prefer flutterbys and unicorns and wise and gentle mythical winged creatures over dark wolves, angry beasts and people with a hankering for blood and other's pain. So my review of this book is askew.
I've given 2.5 stars because it's imaginative, sort of......more
I'm, not cool to admit this, more a fluffernutter, sap for a good ol' happy ending type gal. I prefer flutterbys and unicorns and wise and gentle mythical winged creatures over dark wolves, angry beasts and people with a hankering for blood and other's pain. So my review of this book is askew.
I've given 2.5 stars because it's imaginative, sort of......more
"Do you want to sleep? Find another story teller.
Do you want to think about the world in a new way?
Come closer. Closer, please.
I want to whisper in your ear."
Initial Final Page Thoughts.
Eh..
High Points
Interesting new perspectives on fairy re-tellings . Great selection of fairy tales- some that I’ve only heard of in passing. Creepy. Illustrations. The macabre. Who said Ever After has to be happy? Imaginative. Princess in a coma. “Solar panel poetry machine with biceps”. Men in tights.
Low Points...more
Do you want to think about the world in a new way?
Come closer. Closer, please.
I want to whisper in your ear."
Initial Final Page Thoughts.
Eh..
High Points
Interesting new perspectives on fairy re-tellings . Great selection of fairy tales- some that I’ve only heard of in passing. Creepy. Illustrations. The macabre. Who said Ever After has to be happy? Imaginative. Princess in a coma. “Solar panel poetry machine with biceps”. Men in tights.
Low Points...more
Review also on my blog, Lust For Stories
To tell you the truth, I wholeheartedly loved this book, despite how purely screwed up it was.
Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses is a picture book, but one that's definitely not meant for children. It includes elements such as drug abuse, adrenaline junkies, and just something so messed up that you can't even imagine letting a child read it.
This book is a collection of super short stories that paints this beautifully painful and wrong picture to the re...more
To tell you the truth, I wholeheartedly loved this book, despite how purely screwed up it was.
Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses is a picture book, but one that's definitely not meant for children. It includes elements such as drug abuse, adrenaline junkies, and just something so messed up that you can't even imagine letting a child read it.
This book is a collection of super short stories that paints this beautifully painful and wrong picture to the re...more
Darkety dark dark dark. Free-verse retellings of fairy tales, some in modern settings, that are often bloody and often funny and often extremely sexual and generally twisted. Sharp and minimalist black and white and red papercut illustrations (apparently rendered digitally) that compliment the mini poetic tales. I liked the succinct review of another Goodreads commenter: "Some will make you squirm. Some will make you laugh out loud. Some will make you wish you had some penicillin." Yup. This boo...more
Anyone who watches Once upon a Time or Grimm on television knows that fairytales are not just for children anymore. This collection of fairytales is--er, grimmer than most. Many titles are familiar: "Twelve Dancing Princesses," "Hansel and Gretel," "The Ugly Duckling." But Koertge takes the germ of the tale and exposes the raw underbelly: revenge, incest, violence, deception. He links entirely separate stories: "Rumpelstiltskin" and "Little Red Riding Hood," for example. Some stories are updated...more
This collection of poems twists fairy tales like they've never been twisted before. Most are extremely dark and look at either the secondary characters or at the life after the tale ends. All of them will make you think of these old, familiar stories in a completely new way. The Red Riding Hood story is the girl's explanation of events to her mom after the fact, told in the style of a modern teenager. In the Cinderella story, the two stepsisters talk about how they were unjustly punished and sud...more
I was, unfortunately, underwhelmed by this books. I had high hopes for this collection of short, dark fairytale twists, and some of them managed to live up to that. The failing here is that while the first few seem funny and smart, they begin to pile up and become boring or pointless. I'm not sure whether the problem is the repetition (perhaps I would have enjoyed them more if read separately), but really it seems its just a good idea stretched too far. How many different heroines/damsels do I n...more
I'm a huge fan of new twists on old fairy tales, and Koertge present 23 such classic tales in free verse poetry (definitely geared toward young adults) along with some simple but wonderfully disturbing illustrations by Andrea Dezsö. Unfortunately, I was hoping he would push the boundaries a bit more and present some really interesting points of view.
That said, I adored his beautiful and chilling poem, "The Stepsisters," and I also enjoyed "Memoirs of a Beast," "The Little Match Girl," and "The...more
That said, I adored his beautiful and chilling poem, "The Stepsisters," and I also enjoyed "Memoirs of a Beast," "The Little Match Girl," and "The...more
Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses is a collection of short poems that retell classic fairy tales with a contemporary edge. The retellings are sometimes lyrical, occasionally in verse, and always darkly satirical and macabre. Koertge does a great job of adding a modern spin to these tales while still remaining true to the story’s original intent (before Disney cleaned them up to be what we know of them today). There are also subtle references to relevant modern woes which might not be picke...more
It was interesting, but if I'm going for twists on fairy tales I prefer the Fables, Vol. 1: Legends in Exile series. My favorite was The Twelve Dancing Princesses; this was in one of my fairy tale books growing up and one of my favorites, but the ending always bothered me (even as a kid who loved Disney fairy tales and happy endings, this one just didn't work). Being a less well known (and non Disney) tale it rarely seems to get play in the reworking of fairy tales genre (because it is kind of a...more
If I could, I would give the Illustrator, Andrew Dezso, 4 stars, meaning "I really liked the artwork!" and the actual book the 2 star "it was just okay" review.
The beautifully illustrated cover is what initially drew me to this book, without any knowledge as to the tales it withheld. These short, fairy tales mostly told in verse, are dim, dark and usually attempting to be shocking in some manner. Most fell flat for me, and the best ones were very first two and one at the end. The ones in betwee...more
The beautifully illustrated cover is what initially drew me to this book, without any knowledge as to the tales it withheld. These short, fairy tales mostly told in verse, are dim, dark and usually attempting to be shocking in some manner. Most fell flat for me, and the best ones were very first two and one at the end. The ones in betwee...more
After the first poem: "Wow." After the second: "Oh my god!"
With a minimum of words, Koertge cuts to the heart and crosses over the line your conscience drew when you first read or heard these 23 fairy tales.
With a minimum of words, Koertge cuts to the heart and crosses over the line your conscience drew when you first read or heard these 23 fairy tales.
This is a slim book of retold fairy tales in "verse." Koertge reimagines the tales with the heroes and heroines less wholesome and the villains sometimes (but not always) misunderstood, and often puts a modern and ironic spin on the tales. Adolescents who have never encountered this type of modernized twisted fairy tale for teens may find this idea captivating, but the generally uneven quality of the verse along with what I felt was a somewhat winking tone made the book fall flat for me. Artwork...more
O-kay. Well. Um...
Yikes. If you want to ruin your childhood memories of fairy tales, go ahead and open the book.
This is definitely the second most creepy collection of poetry I've seen--which means diddly-squat because I've read very little poetry--coming in after a collection of E.A. Poe's work my 7th grade english class read.
I reread this book three times to try and understand what was going on. My favorite one--no, they're not all grizzly, just most of them--was "Bearskin," the one about th...more
Yikes. If you want to ruin your childhood memories of fairy tales, go ahead and open the book.
This is definitely the second most creepy collection of poetry I've seen--which means diddly-squat because I've read very little poetry--coming in after a collection of E.A. Poe's work my 7th grade english class read.
I reread this book three times to try and understand what was going on. My favorite one--no, they're not all grizzly, just most of them--was "Bearskin," the one about th...more
Dark, twisted, strange, and eerie, too often now our fairy tales are anything but this. But Ron Koertge instills his retellings with the fear, danger, and darkness of the originals. His Little Match Girl is a contemporary child, her story gritty and chilling. Hansel and Gretel are not nice children, and have become paranoid after their adventure in the woods. The Princess tells us of life after being bruised by a pea, imagining the marks a simple hand or kiss will leave. Andrea Dezso's intricate...more
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| Sno-Isle Mock Printz: * Finalist: Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses | 2 | 10 | Nov 24, 2012 11:48pm |
Ask Ron Koertge what he brings to the realm of young adult fiction, and the seasoned author responds matter-of-factly. "I write dialogue well, and I'm funny," he says--an assessment few would argue with. "I like iconoclasm and practice it in my fiction. I don't like pretense or hypocrisy. I'm almost always irreverent."
A faculty member for more than 35 years at Pasadena City College, where he has...more
More about Ron Koertge...
A faculty member for more than 35 years at Pasadena City College, where he has...more
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