1) Retellings answer what if questions - Any retelling explores different paths than the original story. For example, what if Beauty and the Beast was set in the future? What if Persuasion was set in space?
2) Retellings can be very close to the original stories or loosely based on the original story - Both are fun to read and it is exciting to find out an upcoming release is a retelling. I like having that frame for the story.
3) A high percentage of retellings have great covers.
4) Retellings are familiar stories with interesting twists - I like following a story I know while also coming across the unexpected.
5) Compared to original stories retellings have more characters and more character development - Many fairy tales are short and simplistic. There are often many more characters with much more depth than those original stories.
6) Sometimes retellings are like published fanfiction and give you all your dreams - I think this is especially true of Jane Austen retellings and continuations. In these stories authors often explore what happens after the end of the original story or the moments inbetween scenes.
7) They are usually fun and fast reads!
8) They introduce me to new classics and fairy tales - If I hear a book is a retelling of something, I often will check out the original thing before I read the retelling. This has led me to many interesting books.
Happy Reading!
My Last Top Ten Tuesday ---> Ten Books I Want to Read by the Beach
I love the fairy tale retellings too! Pretty much any retelling I see ends up on my TBR. My fave so far is the Lunar Chronicles. It has everything!
ReplyDeleteIts so true! There are so many fairy tales combined in that one series. I love that one too.
DeleteThis is a great topic this week! I also love retellings a whole lot, and the reasons you listed here are things that I totally agree with but would have never thought of on my own :) Great list!
ReplyDeletehere's my TTT!
Oh yes, great pick for this weeks prompt! Love that this prompt means nearly all our posts are about something different. I LOVE retellings! They are some of my favourite type of reads, and ACOMAF recently blew me away. I love seeing how different authors take the story and make it their own. I definitely have found some new fairytales I had never even heard of thanks to retellings. You can check my TTT post out here.
ReplyDeleteI agree. It is great to see all the different topics and all the different routes retellings take. Thank you!
DeleteGreat topic! I haven't actually read that many retellings but I'd like to read more!
ReplyDeleteMy TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/07/top-ten-tuesday-60/
Oh I hope you enjoy!
DeleteI love retellings because I love see the ways these authors will twist them and just turn them on their heads completely. Like Cinderella set in space (LOVE the Lunar Chronicles). The weirder the better in my opinion, but I do like the ones that still follow the basic storyline. :)
ReplyDeleteIf you like the more out there retellings, I do recommend For Darkness Shows the Stars. It is my favorite Persuasion retelling and it has so many changes but the elements are still there!
Delete#5 - This is so true. The stories of fairy tales are universal but when you read the originals, they are often frustratingly short and feature no depth of character.
ReplyDeleteMy TTT list