Fierce Fairytales: Poems and Stories to Stir Your Soul, Nikita Gill, Jonathan Ball Publishers, ISBN: 9781409181590
I’ve obviously been living in a cave packed with books by authors I have come to know and love, because when I was given this gem of a book to review, I had no expectations. FairyTales?! I mean who doesn’t love them, but ‘been there, read that’ was pretty much my thinking.
Boy, was I wrong! Nikita Gill, I later learnt in my almost obsessive internet search to find out more about a writer I was only just discovering, is a British-Indian writer and poet who lives in the south of England. This 20-something author is an Instagram sensation with a huge online following (yes, I’m now one of them) and has, like the Rumpelstiltskin in one of her tales, taken the classical fairy tales of old and spun them into inspirational messages that make an engaging read – especially for women.
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As Gill reimagines the classics, she magically dismantles the old-fashioned notions we have been raised with. With her words she banishes the meek and docile women and swashbuckling male heroes who are expected to swoop in to save the day. Instead, Gill weaves her thoughts on feminism, love, empowerment, mental illness, betrayal, alcoholism, bullying, eating disorders and abuse into her poems based on those classics we can all relate to.
Through her stories you’ll see Sleeping Beauty wake herself up, Tinkerbell embrace her anger and we get to peek into the backstory of Peter Pan and his arch enemy Captain Hook.
As much as I enjoyed the book, and would recommend it for your bookshelf, I must admit that about three-quarters of the way through the ideas and the anger tend to become a bit redundant, so I’d advise not to read the book cover to cover in one sitting.
That aside, it’s a refreshing, empowering read and one I would urge mothers to pass on to their daughters.
