Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins in Into the Forest

Nov 22, 2016 Leah rated it really liked it

Shelves: into-the-forest-2016

"On the whole I am inclined to think that a witch should not kiss. Perhaps it is the not being kissed that makes her a witch; perhaps the source of her power is the breath of loneliness around her. She who takes a kiss can also die of it, can wake into something unimaginable, having turned herself into some new species."

Not at all what I expected. Instead of a collection of short stories retelling separate fairy tales, Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins links each story by having the prot "On the whole I am inclined to think that a witch should not kiss. Perhaps it is the not being kissed that makes her a witch; perhaps the source of her power is the breath of loneliness around her. She who takes a kiss can also die of it, can wake into something unimaginable, having turned herself into some new species."

Not at all what I expected. Instead of a collection of short stories retelling separate fairy tales, Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins links each story by having the protagonist tell their story to the protagonist of the previous story. The effect, in a way, is of one continuous tale. Is this meant to say that one woman is every woman; our stories are each other's stories?

At first I kept stopping in an attempt to keep track (mentally) of who was from the previous tale. I quickly gave up on that; it interfered with my connection to the story itself. Each tale flowed into the next much better when I just read them as they were. Only when I was finished did I go back through and trace each character. The collection as a whole showed how women's stories (lives?) are intertwined.

3.5 stars

The following are the notes I took after I'd finished. If you don't want any SPOILERS, don't click to show the spoiler.

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