REVIEWED by Jay V.

TITLE: Fairytales From Verania

AUTHOR: TJ Klune

SERIES: Tales From Verania #4.5

PUBLISHER: BOATK Books

LENGTH: 329 pages

RELEASE DATE: April 27, 2021

BLURB:

New York Times bestselling author TJ Klune invites you back to the land of Verania in a new collection of short stories starring the beloved characters from the Tales of Verania series.

In the opening story—The Unicorn in the Tower—Gary is a princess trapped in a stone tower by the evil Lady Tina DeSilva, who plans on sacrificing him on the first full moon after his eighteenth birthday. With help from his friends—a bird named Tiggy and a mangy weasel called Sam—Gary interviews potential suitors to rescue him and love him above all others, as he so rightly deserves.

The Unicorn in the Tower is followed by Sam and the Beanstalk, wherein a poor farm boy exchanges his family’s bull for magical beans and the promise of treasure in the sky. But when he climbs the beanstalk, Sam finds things are not as he expected them to be.

The Good Boy sees Todd and his immaculate ears taking center stage. When Todd’s father dies, he leaves his son in the care of his evil stepmother and two stepsiblings who live to make Todd’s life a living hell. It’s not until the household receives an invitation to attend a ball for the mysterious Sir that Todd begins to wish for a life beyond what he knows.

David’s Dragon, the final—and only canonical—tale, is set a thousand years before the rise of the Dark wizard Myrin. It begins simply: a lonely boy in a small village befriends a dragon. What follows is a story of love and sacrifice, hope and heartbreak, and what it means to earn your place amongst the stars.

Welcome back to Verania. It’s going to be a hell of a ride.

REVIEW:

Ready to ride the rollercoaster of TJ Klune’s twisted mind?

A collection of four stories centered on characters from The Tales of Verania told, at least for the first three, around traditional known fairytales. It is a bumpy journey for everyone, though. If you’re familiar with even the first book, The Lighting-Struck Heart, you’ll enjoy these stories.  If you’ve read the entire series, you’ll enjoy it even more. If you haven’t read any of this series, I highly recommend going back to the beginning, though know there’s humor, silliness, and occasional pathos.  But since we’re talking about this collection specifically, let’s dive right in.

The Unicorn in the tower is Klune at his most absurd; told from the perspective of, well, honestly, it bounces around. An unreliable narrator would be an understatement as the perspective keeps getting twisted: is this a story told by Gary? By someone else? A silly shared story? It’s Klune at the height of his humor highlighting the campy, funny, and over the top aspects of the series. Casting the characters from the books gives it a warped sense as they mostly retain their character traits throughout the stories, with digs on perceived bad characters.  As Gary at the center of this one, you know it’s going to be utterly ridiculous – you’ve been warned.

Sam and the Beanstalk casts Sam in the titular role. What morals that come from the traditional story are set on their head as some of Klune’s overriding themes he uses throughout his books comes center stage here.

The Good Boy is the weakest of the set, following the story of Cinderella almost religiously but giving Todd his own story. The cruelness can be almost unbearable. Though it’s really not Todd’s reality, is a nice nod to an underappreciated character.

David’s Dragon is the last story, and it ventures far from the formula of the others – not following a well known fairytale, nor casting the regular characters in different roles, the book is worth reading for this story alone. It is the prequel to the main series and, though it has it’s small humorous moments, it is pure Klune at his best showing the various shades of humanity and love in a way that will simply gut you. I’m not one to spoil stories, but keep your tissues handy because you’ll likely need it. The other stories are true lead ins to the fantastically written origin story.

As always, Easter eggs to Klune’s other works abound and you’ll get some interesting shockers along the way. The first three stories are so meta, it’s almost mind bending. You don’t really gain any deep new perspective on the characters as they are being ‘cast’ in different roles from their true selves, but it’s fun to see the spin that is created for all of them. The last story is a somehow satisfying end to the main series, even though it happens before that time. It truly completes the circle, and makes you re-think the entire arch. There is another book coming in 2022 that centers around Justin, but it will likely be after the main events, kind of like a “More Tales of Verania”.  It’s always good to return to friends, and, more so, when we’ll get to see their after happily ever after.

RATING:  

BUY LINK: 

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