'The Language Of Thorns' Will Ensnare You With Dark Magic

The hardest, sharpest, most attractive magic of fairy tales is their power to make you both want to live inside them — and be glad you never have to.

Good fairy tales balance sweetness and nightmares. They are candy apples with razorblades inside; kisses touched with poison. Bad ones are nothing but sweet. They coddle and muffle and take all the sharp, dangerous edges off of the dirty business of learning important lessons in a world that's rarely as nice as we wantand with choruses of cute mice and bluebirds. But the good ones don't end before there's blood on the knife.