Book Review: Alice in tumblr-Land and other Fairy Tales for a New Generation by Tim Manley

Title: Alice in tumblr-Land and other Fairy Tales for a New Generation
Author: Tim Manley
Publisher: Penguin Books
ISBN: 9780143124795
Genre: Satire, Fiction, Fairy Tales, Parodies
Pages: 240
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

October couldn’t have started on a better note. To read a book at the start of a month, which you really enjoy is a magical experience in itself. Perhaps then, nothing else is needed. It happened to me yet again, as I finished reading, “Alice in Tumblr-Land and other Fairy Tales for a New Generation” by Tim Manley.

In this book, the fairy tales and their characters are written for the modern world. Sleeping Beauty does not want a baby. The Ugly Duckling is still worried about the way she looks, but Thank God for Instagram! Cinderella is back home and lonely. Rapunzel has chopped off her hair and is now dating a girl. You get the drift. Forget the old fairy tales format, where there were happy ever afters – because this time, your beloved characters are busy with Twitter, Facebook or chatting sites finding true love.

The stories are more than a hundred and each one is set in the modern world and depicts how fairy-tale characters are as lost as they were. The illustrations by the author are funnier, if I may say so. The fairy-tales are short, full of satire and make you laugh out loud or just sometimes feel sorry for the characters or even sometimes go all emotional, mainly as the book ends. There are way too many favourites of mine to pick one, however I am a little biased to Sleeping Beauty’s story. Each character appears and reappears and by the end of the book you almost string their story through.

Every tale is full of satire and mocks the system and things as they are today. They are also reflective in nature and for that the author has to be lauded for his efforts. Everyone who has grown on their dose of fairy tales will relate to this book in the modern context and will for sure laugh out loud. I will for one get back to it sometime soon. It is a great metro or a bus read.

Here’s a trailer of the book for you:

You can also visit the author’s website to know more: http://fairytalesfor20somethings.tumblr.com/