A thousand beginnings and endings

These were introductions for me to many myths I had not heard before. I really enjoyed the authors' notes on the original and how/why they varied the retelling. I followed the recs of fellow Goodreaders and skipped several shorts that were very unappealing.

Like many (most?) anthologies, this opens and closes with two of the strongest stories. I liked several stories that had the same outcomes for the female heroes but examined the woman's point of view, motivations, or positive actions. As one author notes: the ox had more lines of dialogue than the female hero in one of the originals!!

I liked it quite a bit more than I expected. In the sense that in a collection of short stories, esp. by different authors, there are some one likes and some one doesn't, but in this one, I liked all of them.

It read to me like the fairy tale books I loved as a child. Yes, some stories were contemporary, but that somehow just made them better. All of them had that fairy tale quality of being complete even if they leave me intrigued.

I suppose it benefited me that I don't know any of the fairy tales very well for two reasons. None of the retellings encroached on my version of them because I don't have a version and they all felt somewhat fresh and novel to me.

I liked too the post-story authors note of how the story relates to their inspirations.

Truly a lovely book.