Alix E. Harrow, A Spindle Splintered
Alix Harrow wrote The Thousand Doors of January and The Once and Future Witches, both of which I liked, so when I saw this one at our library, I picked it up. It's a very slim volume, just 120 pages, following the current practice of marketing novellas as novels, so I'm glad I didn't buy it. That said, it's a good read. Here, Harrow retells the story of Sleeping Beauty from the point of view of a 21 year old born with a teratogenic illness, caused by fracking chemicals in the water supply in her town, who has known since she can remember that she will almost certainly not live past her 21st birthday.
Sleeping Beauty becomes her favorite fairytale, from age six onwards: the girl who sleeps but doesn't die. She graduates early from high school, gets a degree in folklore, and on her 21st birthday pricks her finger on a spindle (her bff set up a sleeping-beauty themed party for her). Instead of falling into a hundred years of sleep, she slides into another dimension -- the one with the actual Sleeping Beauty.
Among other things, this is a meta-analysis of the fairy tale, and of why we as a culture love such stories. Good writing, and a satisfying conclusion.
Eleanor Arnason, "Laki"
As with Arnason's Hidden Folk, which is a collection of five stories set in Iceland, this one has a tone similar to the Edda of Snorri Sturluson, selections of which I used to teach in my World Lit classes, and which I highly recommend (both Arnason's stories and Snorri). Here, a family living on an inland farm is driven onto the road by the eruption of Laki, and ends up sheltering in a cave with a family of trolls. (You may say this is fantasy, except trolls are not seen as fantastic in Iceland.) Later, they continue on and end up living with a mean brother and his nice wife on the coast.
If you love Arnason as much as I do, you will drive to six different bookstores over the course of a week until finally you find one that carries F&SF so you can buy a copy. Worth it.
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