Teodora 's Reviews > Fairy Tale

5/5 ⭐

“You never know where the trapdoors are in your life, do you?”

I bet you guessed it already from the rating above but I loved this book! Definitely a new favourite of mine from Mr King.

The thing is as follows: this book is so unlike his usual style, but at the same time he keeps his usual pace and his usual storytelling manner, which might give you chills down your spine from time to time.

I said it's unlike his usual style because we all know his speciality is horror, he gave us some of the most iconic horror characters and stories ever. However, this book, Fairy Tale , is constructed to be a fantastic journey in the sacred pace of a traditional fairy tale.

The plot is built as such: the pace is slow, the hero goes through various trials and challenges that turn him from an ordinary boy in a small town to a brave and wise prince in a foreign world.

It is a long book, yes. I know. And at some point it drags a little bit (in the middle, obviously), but the way the plot has been built little by little, step by step, with traditional fairy tale elements, with trials, with ordinary heroes, with helpers and magical objects and magical creatures and magical worlds? Brilliant, I'm giving a 10/10 for that.

The dark premise that still makes you see it as King's doing is that he took elements from the original fairy tales that some of us grew up with, letting the sickeningly honey-glazed sugarplumed Disney version slide away to eat dust behind. What King used in his story were the real fairy tales, the ones the Grimm brothers and Hans Christian Andersen wrote, the ones with cruel and brute elements. Not the Little Mermaid who lost her pretty voice to Ursula but managed to fall in love with the Prince, the Prince also fell in love with her and they lived happily ever after. No. The Little Mermaid who couldn't speak because she sold her voice in exchange for legs she couldn't even step with without feeling like a million knives were piercing through her flesh. And, in the end, she fell in love with the Prince, but the Prince married another woman so the Little Mermaid died. Not because of jealousy and heartbreak though, but because she did not fulfil her side of the pact with Ursula, whom she sold her voice to.
That's the kind of fairy tale King was creating for his own book and he succeeded. You can clearly see that he believes in the twisty ones rather than the Disney sugary ones.

“It’s the stories of our childhood that make the deepest impressions and last the longest.”

I love this book for a few more reasons, other than the great way it has been created. I loved it because it had a dog (and how could you not be obsessed with a story involving a dog) and also because Charlie was, actually, a quite relatable character. He didn't try too hard to get the spotlight, he was naturally good at things and naturally kind and sweet even though he didn't have the easiest of life, and one thing I absolutely adored about him is that even though his dad forced him to grow up faster than he should've (and made life hard for the both of them), Charlie still loved him dearly and they had a beautiful bond and a beautiful father-son relationship.

There's a lot to dissect about this book but at the same time, there is not much happening. However, there are details that make it nearly impossible to reproduce in a few sentences. Two things are certain though: 1) you have to read it because 2) there's Radar and she's the sweetest and bravest dog and you'll fall in love with her!