This was a book about our favourite fairy tales from far and wide and about their dark origins which in my case I really enjoyed and most I hadn't heard before

Quick, easy, and fun read/listen. While some of the stories are darker than their Disney versions, their succinct format leaves a lot to be desired in the scary department though. I might argue that there was so little actual story telling that children could even listen without being bothered with nightmares. The introduction set me up for more and just didn’t deliver. As said above, it was quick and easy, entertaining, but lacked any depth, just a compilation of very basic stories.

Thank you NetGalley and Cider Mill Press for the advanced listening copy.

I know this might sound strange to many, but I found this book delightful. Some stories were quite familiar to me, but many I had never heard or read before. I especially enjoyed the once from all over the world. This is a book I would highly recommend to all lovers of fairy tales, gruesome stories, and folklore!

My blog and YouTube reviews will be posted closer to publication day, but I have included the links.

The narration of this book was fantastic. The voice was perfect and suited the feel of the scary fairy tales without being overdone. I liked how the stories were broken up one by one in bite sized chunks.

2/5
Thank you to NetGalley and Cider Mill Press for an ALC. All opinions are my own.

First of all, the narration is great. Dennis Kleinman has the perfect voice for telling fairytales. His narration has the soothing tone of a bedtime story, which is very fitting in my opinion.

However, I think this book was mismarketed and as a result, pretty disappointing. These stories are dark, but they are still children's stories and they definitely will not scare the adults who seem to be the target audience. Additionally, all of the stories are so short that they feel underwhelming. There are definitely plenty of fairy tales that are naturally short, but many of these just feel like plot summaries of the real stories which drastically minimizes the impact. Also, contrary to what the cover would lead you to believe, most of these DO have happy endings. The villains get some sort of brutal punishment, but the heroes still live happily ever after. In fact, most of the stories that don’t have happy endings are ones told from the perspective of some sort of wrongdoer.

The stories themselves are fine, but they're also not the author’s original work, and the way they are told in this collection detracts from the original tales (at least the ones I am already familiar with) instead of improving them.

I think this collection would be much more effective if the author had picked 10 or 20 fairytales and really explored the dark and gorey aspects, adding some of their own flair along the way. As it is, I would recommend you just google some dark fairytales, since you can find them online in a longer format. The only thing stopping this from being one star is the great narration.

Thanks to netgalley for the alc 🤍 this was a nostalgic listen to fairytales with darker endings than we are used to, however I did expect more?? It seems like more of a collection of alternate endings of fairy tales rather than anything new or something that would have a plot twist. Really enjoyed the audiobook though :)

I listened to this as an audiobook and the narrator was great. I sometimes struggle with understanding British accents, but had no issues at all with this narrator. Even his pronunciation for the German and French names/words were excellent.

Now, for the book itself. My first objection is the title itself; it is very misleading. None of these stories were described or told in a manner that made them scary. I would say they were often gruesome and/or unhappy. But also, there were in fact happy endings for many of the stories as well….so again, the name does not fit the contents of the book well at all.

Essentially, each chapter is a very short retelling of popular and some not-so-popular fairytales. Now, as someone who has always been a big reader, there were very very few stories I hadn’t already heard before. However, I did not knock a star off for that reason. I think this overview of all these fairytales is a great way to introduce, for instance, someone who is not so familiar with the Western fairytale culture to these stories.

I do wish there were a better balance of fairytales from the different continents because half (if not more) of them were from Europe.

Overall, this is a good introduction to fairytales in their original and uncensored form.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to review this ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

The intro was about the only interesting thing about this book, otherwise it was simply an anthology of the og fairy tales. Which are definitely interesting, but I was expecting tie-ins between the stories or something to make it unique. It was literally just a dry list, making it seem disjointed and dull to listen to.

Not so scary and probably two Eurocentric. This should have been my jam but ended up being just fine. A short intro states that most of the stories you know originally had far more gruesome endings or consequences. But no history or context beyond that. It also ends abruptly with no conclusion or resolution. Which means it really is just a book of fairy tales and nothing more. I wanted to know why the endings were different and what that change meant.

I will give the book props on two points. It brings in some tales from all corners of the world (but is heavily weighted to Europe). I have a better Thank you average knowledge of folklore and some of these were new to me.

Really interesting premise, but as I really don’t think it’s intended for kids, I wish it had dug in on the context and history of the stories as opposed to just dropping them in our laps.

And honestly, the audio was maybe a detractor on this one. The narration was pretty even throughout, and with fairytales, part of the point is reading bombastically and theatrically. Not the case here.

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC and ALC.

This is what I am talking about! As we approach spooky season you're going to want to set the mood and The Scary Book of Fairy Tales is just the book of that. This is a collection of "fairy tales", but not exactly what you are thinking. They are dark versions of what we grew up reading and listening to, the pretty versions. I was fortunate enough to receive both the ebook and audiobook of this and I was not disappointed. I jumped right into reading/listening and was satisfied in the most eerie way.

The audiobook is the perfect accompaniment to the book as the narrator, Dennis Kleinman, brings the dark tone to each story. His deep tone resonates with each and every word. I will even say, his voice is rather calming for such a macabre collection. This is a brilliant collection of very short tales, from all around the world so there will be many you probably never heard of before, or if you did, you probably heard a different version of it.

While these aren't too gruesome they may tend to be a little more on the spookier side for really young littles so proceed with caution. The stories are short enough that you will be able to gauge whether or not they are too much just by going through a few of them within minutes. I highly recommend The Scary Book of Fairy Tales as it is sure to send shivers up your spine this autumn season! I received this as an advance digital copy from Netgalley and have voluntarily left my honest feedback.

I really enjoyed this book! I love fairytales, but I love the "gruesome" versions, or the un-happy ever after endings, haha. I feel like the narrator was a bet blah, but I was a huge fan of the multiple tales and how they were ones that are told in multiple cultures. It was awesome to hear so many I had never knew of before. I would honestly listen to this, or read it again and I would definitely share it!

The narration of this book was well spoken.
I provided the below review for the book itself. Nothing else to comment on about the narration. It was good.
Honestly, I really struggled with this book. I expected to be blown away by scary retellings of our favourite fairy tales growing up. The book contains 50 tales in a 160-page book, that works out to roughly 3.2 pages per story which does not allow for a fully fleshed out storyline if readers are not familiar with a specific tale. I believe this book would have benefitted from less tales compiled into one short book. Based on the introduction, the book does not contain new twists to classic tales, rather it is part of the ‘original collections’, stating that early nineteenth-century Germans modified the tales in later editions to be less dark and twisted. I absolutely loved the illustrations by Neil Evans and quickly became my favourite parts of the whole book. Overall, this was nothing original as I first anticipated. If you are specifically looking for the original tales prior to being modified throughout modern history, I would suggest this. Thank you to NetGalley and Cider Mill Press for providing me with an ARC copy.

The Scary book of Fairy Tales was a dark anthology of some original fairytales. These include more graphic and violent material often with no happy ending. Common themes of these stories included evil stepmothers and stepsiblings, evil old women, magical items, people coming back to life after dying, and many more. The stories come from countries all over. Some you will recognize from Grimm brothers or Hans Christian Anderson. While others come from folktales from all over the world.

This dark collection of fairy tales was really interesting. Many of the stories I have heard before but not in their original, darker form. The gritty nature of many of them made me devour these stories. I read the entire book in one sitting. The stories are quick but the reason they have been around for so long is because the stories are enchanting. I found the darker versions even more compelling and an interesting twost on stories that I have known my whole life.

I absolutely loved this book! The Scary Book of Fairy Tales goes beyond the versions of Snow White, Cinderella, and The Little Mermaid we all know, diving into their original (and often much darker) roots. What made it even more fascinating was the inclusion of folklore from around the world—I loved revisiting classic tales in their haunting forms while also discovering new stories I had never heard before.

I listened to the audiobook and thought it was fantastic. The narration brought the eerie atmosphere of these tales to life in the best way, making it feel like I was being told ghost stories around a fire. If you enjoy fairy tales, folklore, or just a touch of the macabre, this is an absolute must-read (or listen)!

Thanks to NetGalley and HCCP & HCF Audio for providing me with an ALC.

It was a nice collection of fairy tales and folk tales. I think I might have misread the title though. I thought these were going to be retellings of the original stories with haunting endings, but the title actually says "The Haunting Endings" which refers to the original ones which were not toned down. I already knew most of it, especially the ones by Brothers Grimm. Some of the folktales were new to me though and I appreciated that they were taken from a wide variety of places. Most of them weren't as dark as I expected though, probably because after a point they all started ending in cannibalism or the like. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a quick read with a wide variety of tales from the olden days.

The narrator did a great job, his tone was somewhat matter-of-fact but I think it worked well for this collection of extremely short stories.

I absolutely LOVED Dennis Kleinman's narration—his voice is perfect for the telling of these tales.
I really appreciate the intention behind this project—so many of these stories are much darker than the modern versions a lot of people grew up on. That being said, the stories were overly simplified and often shortened, glossing over some of the details that made them really stand out. As someone who grew up on the older, grittier versions of these stories, I found that a lot of the versions here didn't quite hold up to the versions I read. I also struggled with the layout of the stories, and I think this compilation would have been more effective if they'd been more clearly grouped by the moral/lesson they impart, by certain themes found within, etc. Overall, I liked the concept but felt it would have benefitted from letting the stories have just a little more room to breath and grouping the stories by their content rather than their places of origin.

I went into this book with the knowledge that the O.G. fairytales/fairy stories were a bit grittier than the Disney version or even the children's book versions. My expectation were blown out of the water! The level of trauma, abuse, and gore in the original stories might just make Stephen King hesitant to read them to his children! These tales were originally told as morality lessons to youth and adults alike, not really so much to calm children to sleep, as we currently view theme.

The audiobook was well paced, and the narrator's presentation holds just about the right amount of darkness to fit the tales. I binged these due to the nature of this being an audiobook, but I think this would be better as a physical or e-book so that the reader can read one story and take a break for another day. Approximately 50% of the tales should be familiar to most readers/listeners, but I greatly appreciated the inclusion of lesser-known stories

Overall, I recommend! I would enjoy listening to the narrator, Neil Evans, read other spooky books! His voice has just enough grit to lend additional spookiness turning these fairytales into something a bit more nefarious.

There were several tales I was unfamiliar with, but for the most part they were familiar stories, leaning on the creepier, darker, true-to-the-original endings that most often get glossed over. The narrator mirrored the style of writing in a no-frills voice, which suited the already pared down, matter of fact tone of the book. I think it's important every few years to get these stories back out there in their original forms.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC audiobook.

This was such a nice change of pace from my normal fantasy romance novels!

I really enjoyed the stories in this collection! They were a perfect mix of familiar/ widely-known and unfamiliar tales. I was excited that several of them including the Brothers Grimm’s version of “The Little Mermaid” were in this collection as I’ve been meaning to read them, but just never got around to doing so.

I listened to the audiobook and thought that the narrator was perfect for this collection! His voice had the perfect spooky tone to it, adding to the ambiance.

I will say that after reading the description, I did expect the stories to be a bit scarier than they were. If you’re on the fence about reading this collection because you don’t like anything too scary, I think you should be fine! I can be creeped out pretty easily and wasn’t bothered by any of these stories! They leaned more spooky than terrifying.

Thank you Cider Mill Press and NetGalley for an advanced Listening Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a delightful collection of dreadful and cautionary tales, and I would recommend it to readers that are not familiar with these dark tales to discover for the first time or those who want to delve into what the stories offer. The narrator, Dennis Kleinman is very immersive in his tale and I felt like I was sitting by the fireplace at night, while he weaved these stories.

I would say that if you are expecting new stories, or new twists to these tales- this is not that, I would not recommend this book to those already experienced in the tales or having already read various retellings of the original source material. I would still recommend it to those who have not read the original source material, as this is a good way to be introduced to them.