Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” has always been one of my favorite poems, so when I saw there was a new YA fantasy novel that takes this poem as its premise, I had to pick it up. Not Good for Maidens by Tori Bovalino, which came out last spring, tells the story of two generations of … Continue reading Not Good For Maidens—A Goblin Market Retelling
Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre is one of literature’s best-known Gothic novels and certainly one of the most commonly read—and for good reason! Jane Eyre was at the forefront of a wave of a new variation on the genre that really gave the Gothic Romance a sense of the romantic. The interplay between Jane’s fierce independence … Continue reading 2021 Jane Eyre Retellings
How about a little queer romance to warm the icy chill of isolation? Robbergirl by S. T. Gibson, which came out last year, is a YA retelling of Hans Christian Anderson’s classic fairy tale “The Snow Queen.” While the original tale centers a young girl’s quest to save her loved one from the embodiment of … Continue reading Review of Robbergirl—A Snow Queen Retelling
Edgar Allan Poe stories with a diverse, YA twist? Yes, please! So many of us first discover Poe during our teenage years that it seems perfectly fitting to reinterpret his stories in a young adult context. Editor Dahlia Adler does exactly this in her upcoming anthology His Hideous Heart, which gathers together thirteen celebrated YA … Continue reading His Hideous Heart Review—Poe Retellings with a YA Twist!
Spring has sprung! It is now April, and that means it’s time to exchange the dreary cold of winter for flowers, spring rains, and sunshine (at least here in my part of the world)! In honor of the changing of the seasons, I want to highlight some books that give a fresh spin on the … Continue reading Persephone Myth Retellings
Howard Phillips Lovecraft is the kind of writer who provokes mixed emotions. On the one hand, he has become the face of the cosmic horror subgenre and his influence on modern horror in general is undeniable. When you sit down to actually read his stories, however, you’ll find that they tend to be permeated by … Continue reading Fresh Takes on Lovecraft
Happy Pride Month, dear readers! I’ve written a few times on this blog about how Gothic literature has been used to explore marginalized genders and sexualities, both in joyful, celebratory ways and as a way of exploring societal and personal anxieties about not conforming to the norm. Many queer authors have found their place in … Continue reading Books with Nonbinary/Ungendered Protagonists
The Gothic literary movement may not have begun until the mid-eighteenth century with Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, but it draws on much older wells of literary tradition. I have already explored the proto-Gothic elements of several of Shakespeare’s plays, which inspired many of the themes and tropes of later Gothic works. Another strong … Continue reading Bluebeard—A Proto-Gothic Folktale
If there’s one piece of advice you need to survive a YA horror novel, it’s this: Stay home on prom night. Stephen King can probably be credited with kicking off the trope of blood-soaked proms in his 1974 debut novel Carrie, which famously ends with a massacre when a gory prom prank drives a bullied … Continue reading Review of The Weight of Blood—A Modern Homage to Carrie
Lately, I’ve been noticing a rising trend in fungal-themed horror novels, or what some corners of the internet are starting to dub “sporror.” (Get it? Like spores?) Mushrooms and their kin have many characteristics that lend themselves quite well to horror. For one thing, there’s still so much that we don’t know about these organisms—only … Continue reading Mushroom Horror
