[AD // NETGALLEY ARC]

I got The Scary Book of Fairy Tales, written by Tim Rayborn and narrated by Dennis Kleinman, as an audiobook ARC from Netgalley and the publisher for an honest review.

I’m not gonna lie, I loooove fairy tales! I always have. I gobbeled up all sorts as a kid: Asbjørnsens and Moe (of course, they’re Norwegian), The borthers Grimm, H. C. Andersen, 1001 Nights, and whatever I could get my hands on. When I saw The Scary Book of Fairy Tales, written by Tim Rayborn, as a “listen now” on Netgalley, I knew I just had to grab it.

I run audiobooks on at least 1.5 speed, but the narrator, Dennis Kleinman, sounded good from what I could tell. I’m definitively glad it wasn’t AI. I’ve only once tried an audiobook narrated by AI, and I didn’t stand it. It’s clear that this was read by a voice actor, thank goodness!

This is a collection of fairy tales that claims to be the original. When it comes to collected fairy tales, it’s hard to know how they actually were originally, but this is how they were when they were collected. There are also some fairy tales that have been “disneyfied” later, i.e. made more “family friendly”, like H.C. Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. When I was a kid, a lot of the fairy tales I read were not the disneyfied. I remember having this book containing the brothers Grimm’s “Snow White”, and I clearly remember the description of the chopping off toes and heels. Pretty bloody.

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!