Fairytale retellings and rewrites of classic novels have become extremely popular topics for authors in the past few years. Here are just a few of the best books that put new twists on classic stories that we all know and love.
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1) A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas
Written by the author of the bestselling Throne of Glass books, A Court of Thorns and Roses takes the classic story of Beauty and the Beast and adds fairies, humor, and a badass female lead named Feyre.
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After killing a wolf, Feyre is taken to a mysterious magical land where she discovers that the wolf-like creature that dragged her there is actually a fairy named Tamlin. Although she was always taught that fairies were evil, Feyre can’t help her growing affection for him.
As Feyre falls harder for her fairy captor and begins to realize that the fairy world isn’t as bad as she thought, a darkness is descending on Tamlin’s world that could destroy everything.
2) The Lunar Chronicles, Marissa Meyer
Each book in this series takes on classic fairytales and puts a futuristic twist to them. Cinder, the first novel in the series, takes on Cinderella.
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The novel is about a cyborg mechanic named Cinder who is disliked by her stepmother and shadowed by her mysterious past. When her life becomes intertwined with Prince Kai’s, Cinder is thrown into the middle of an intergalactic struggle and the only way to protect her world’s future is by uncovering her own shadowy past.
3) Dorothy Must Die, Danielle Paige
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This book is a must-read for any fan of The Wizard of Oz. Amy Gumm is a fairly normal teenager from Kansas until her life is turned upside down (literally) when a tornado sweeps her off to the land of Oz, where she learns that Dorothy has found her way back to Oz and has taken over. Now it’s up to Amy and the rest of the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked to take down Dorothy and reclaim Oz.
4) Nevermore, Kelly Creagh
Creagh’s homage to Edgar Allen Poe features Varen, a mysterious goth, and Isobel, a popular cheerleader.
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Although from two different worlds, Varen and Isobel become increasingly drawn to each other after they are paired together for a lit project. Soon Isobel is swept into Varen’s twisted, dark world where Poe’s stories come to life and dreams are more than just dreams.
It is up to her to save Varen—and herself—from Varen’s own nightmares.
5) Abandon, Meg Cabot
Bestselling author Meg Cabot weaves the modern world with the myth of Persephone in the first book of the Abandon trilogy.
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Pierce is one of the few people to have visited the underworld and come back. But even so, all her life Pierce has been followed by a mysterious dark figure. When she moves to a new town, she hopes that he will go away and she can finally stop feeling so afraid, but once you’ve been to the underworld, it never really leaves you.
She discovers that the person who has been following her is actually on her side, and despite her efforts, Pierce falls further into his world, which leads her right back to the underworld that she fears so much.
6) Another Pan, Daniel & Dina Nayeri
Daniel and Dina Nayeri have twisted the world of Peter Pan into an atmospheric, fast-paced fantasy in this modern take on the classic tale.
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Wendy Darling and her brother John are studying at the Marlowe School, where their obsession with a mysterious book, The Book of Gates, leads them to a charismatic RA named Peter. Peter tells them that their actions with The Book of Gates has caused an unspeakable evil to seep into the Marlowe School, and now it is up to Wendy, John, and Peter to stop it.
There’s never been a retelling of Peter Pan like this before.
7) The Looking Glass Wars, Frank Beddor
This first book in The Looking Glass Wars series begins a retelling of Alice in Wonderland unlike any other every told before.
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Alyss Hart is the heir to the throne of Wonderland—at least until her aunt Redd kills her parents and takes over. Alyss and her bodyguard, Hatter, must escape to our world, but the two become separated on the way. Alyss ends up in Victorian London where she befriends an author to whom she tells her life story, which he turns into a book—but he gets everything wrong.
Hatter knows the true story, and he makes it his mission to find Alyss and help her reclaim Wonderland and defeat her aunt Redd.
8) Stitching Snow, R.C. Lewis
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This novel follows Essie, a resident on planet Thanda in a world where a missing princess has caused everything to fall into violence and chaos. One day, a young man named Dane crash lands on Essie’s planet and she agrees to help him repair his ship. When Essie realizes that Dane is not who he says he is and that his crash was definitely not an accident, she is thrown into the middle of a war that she spent most of her life avoiding.
Essie’s trust in everything she knows is tested and she must decide who her real allies are in this futuristic twist on the Snow White tale.