65 Books Like Rapunzel's Revenge

This is a very meta version of The Three Pigs, which goes on to additionally be a meta version of a book experience. First, we see the wolf blow a pig right out of the story panel border, and then everything really implodes conceptually from there. The pigs then regroup in a non-book void, despite still being in the book we are holding, and from there devise a plan to return to their original story with a wolf-proof reinforcement they got from a different story. Sounds wild? It is.

This contemporary retelling of Little Red Riding Hood is moody and pensive, and very unique. It is not humorous, and it is definitely weird - but I find myself having a lasting affection for this strange retelling. In it, two fractious siblings travel via portal (the tunnel) from an urban setting into a forest filled with haunting suggestions of fairy tale imagery. They are forced to face internal challenges in order to escape back to their home, which then changes their relationship roles to each other.

The author/illustrator of the truly hilarious Traction man is here! answers the burning question I know I have always had: what happened after the dish and spoon ran away? Spirited illustration and a rollicking storyline imagine the fate of the runaway kitchenware, leading to a final redemption after many wild adventures. A reminder that peripheral characters can have complex lives too.

In another Wild West setting twist, an advice dispensing Rabbi is the vehicle for upcycling traditional folk tales. And it is funny: whether the Rabbi is busting through saloon doors to beat someone to the punchline of an Abe Lincoln joke or using his wits to outsmart bandits or simply helping out with a frontier domestic issue, I find myself literally laughing out loud. The illustrations are charmingly folky, and there is a glossary for the story sources which often turn out to be tales that are many hundreds of years old.

I was about thirteen years old when I picked up Charles Portis’ book, and from the very first line, I wanted to be Mattie Ross. The novel was the first Western I remember reading and remains imprinted on my brain as a first to mash up the traditional themes of the righteous Code of the West and the hopelessness of a world awash in lawlessness and violence, all the while eliciting whoops of laughter.

Mattie was the first female protagonist I remember encountering with pluck and impertinence to match the infamous U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn and inspire my own.

Brian is a fellow Georgia author and a friend. I was gobsmacked by his first novel, Bull Mountain, so when he asked if I would blurb the sequel, Like Lions, I didn’t hesitate a nanosecond.

There are evildoings galore: violent criminals, drug-running, revenge killings, and a hunt for buried millions. But our hero Sheriff Clayton Burroughs is a damaged soul, dependent on alcohol and painkillers, so three powerful female characters step up to the plate.

I loved Clayton’s wife Kate, fiercely loyal and protective of her family. Vanessa is a shadowy outsider, both deadly and compassionate. And Twyla Viner is the aging matriarch of another criminal family that has a bone or two to pick with Clayton. The lions in this book are the women, and they rule this jungle.

Researchers/writers today make great use of the Internet, but perhaps no one does it better than Peter Brand.

Living in Australia, he can make only infrequent trips to America, yet he seems to be able to mine records on the Internet to find the nuggets that others have missed. His revelations about the loyal men who attached to Wyatt Earp in his quest to avenge his assassinated brother, Morgan, have expanded our knowledge of the Earp story to a tremendous degree.

Brand is also a personal friend of mine. Each new publication of his throws new light on the shadowy episodes that Earp aficionados want to understand better. It is quite an accomplishment for Peter to gain the status he has achieved among historians.

Who would believe that an Aussie could become one of the vanguards of Western research?

This is a collection of short stories that mixes fairy tales and myths to create six spooky, atmospheric retellings.

A few of the short stories, like “The Witch of Duva” (which borrows from “Hansel and Gretel”) deal with some dark themes, and “When Water Sang Fire,” is a deeply tragic, sapphic work inspired by “The Little Mermaid.”

My favorite of the collection is “The Soldier Prince” which combines “The Nutcracker” and “The Velveteen Rabbit” to produce a story with a fascinating take on agency, love, and self-awareness.

It’s queer in a way I don’t think I can define; I was still thinking about that story weeks after I finished it, and I would—in a heartbeat—read a whole novel about that particular nutcracker.

Hermes’ novel displays a different sort of playfulness, opening in Wittenberg with Horatio as narrator. It connects not only to Hamlet but also Shakespeare’s sonnets. Shakespeare is a character in the topsy-turvy fashion, not speaking directly. I loved the clever weaving of Shakespeare’s lines into the dialogue and the suspenseful, twisting plot. Hermes employs gender-bending differently than I do and touches on the authorship controversy, as I do not. Her identification of the dark lady and fair youth of the sonnets is unique. I appreciate her creativity and her way of incorporating quotations. In my work, there are speeches from plays and poems spoken aloud, as my protagonist is an actor, but in the 11th century they resemble natural speech. Moving forward and backward in time, this novel inspires flights of imagination.

The story of the young orphan Pip, the escaped convict Magwitch, the recluse Miss Haversham, and her adopted daughter Estella. Dickens weaves the story back and forth between the characters.

You could pick many of Dickens’ books, but I think this story has everything: murder, love, intrigue, and tragedy. A storyteller extraordinaire. I’d go as far as to say that he is Britain’s greatest storyteller.