100 Books Like The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood

Ordinarily, a werewolf novel with a strong emphasis on the romance angle wouldn’t rate so highly with me, but Kelley Armstrong’s book was the right one at the right time. Elana, our heroine, is the world’s only female werewolf; her job has been killing rogue shapeshifters. She gets tired of that and tries to retire and live as a normal human, but that doesn’t work out.

What I liked about this was that it was my first exposure to a werewolf novel that really dealt with the political and social dynamics of a worldwide werewolf pack. Fortunately, Armstrong is a great storyteller, so there is more here than politics or romance. Her worldbuilding is fantastic, as evidenced by the fact this became the first in a long series of Otherworld novels.

Werewolf James Bond killing Nazis in World War II. I’ll say it again: Werewolf James Bond killing Nazis in World War II. What more do you need to know?

Robert R. McCammon’s 1989 horror-adventure imagines the classic Gothic monster of the werewolf as a spy traversing a crumbling Nazi-occupied Europe. The book has an incredible sense of scale and incorporates both stomach-churning body horror and blistering action sequences, including a set piece on a train filled with deadly Saw-style traps and a shootout inside a Parisian opera house.

The Wolf’s Hour is ridiculous, and I love it for that. I love that it isn’t afraid to delve into the cheesier elements of the Gothic genre, without letting that detract from the real-world horrors of what the Nazis did. I’ve always felt that many of the best Gothic stories have some form of monster vs. man, with man being revealed as… show more.

As research, I read a lot of books about werewolves. Some were bad, some were decent, and some were too academic. This one was, in the words of Goldilocks, just right. I loved that it was written in a language anyone could understand and that it wasn’t focused on just one geographic location or culture.

Douglas presents everything from Greek mythology to Norse, Japanese, American Indian, and others. He keeps his personal commentary to a minimum and presents the reader with much information. I see this book as a primer for understanding just about everything about the shapeshifter in legend and literature. If the fiction author has done his/her job well, the shapeshifter will have roots in something Douglas has told us about.

Werewolf stories are my favorite sub-genre of horror, whether it be books or movies. Brandner’s book set the stage for one of the greatest werewolf movies ever. The writing, the characters, and the setting are all top-notch.

For a fun experiment, watch the movie and then read the book, or vice versa, and compare what was changed and whether the movie made improvements. In my opinion, it did, but the book absolutely stands on its own.

This is the book that made my kids’ heads explode (not literally—this book is perfectly safe (as far as I know)) as it helped them discover the idea of parody: taking something familiar and twisting it in a funny, unexpected way.

We rolled and lol’ed together as we read Jon’s wild, hysterical takes on old fairy tales. The non-twist twist ending to his take on the ugly duckling story is still a running joke in our family. Jon’s The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs and The Real Dada Mother Goose are also great for the same reason.

What would happen if Little Red Riding Hood ran into the woods – and came across a cottage inhabited by wolf-men (fur and all)? I love stories where a couple adds another partner to their relationship, and The Witch’s Wolves gives us a sweet glimpse of that. If you understand the sex appeal of Stanley Tucci, you will get why this cozy queer story delivers heat.

The classic fairy tale of “Little Red Riding Hood” told in magnificent and detailed illustrations. The art is carefully rendered in black and white with bright red highlighting each page creating a unique look. This book, fortunately, has created a happier ending than Red getting gobbled up by the wolf. This mixture of a classic tale told through a new lens is truly enchanting.

Unlike so many books that address the topic of abandonment, the messages of this audiobook grabbed my heart and pulled my mind along for the ride. I personally found that listening to the author’s incredibly powerful stories and metaphors led me to be highly engaged in her follow-up explanations of the underlying dynamics. She elucidated how they illustrated the difficulties of people who feel a chronic sense of being alone and abandoned and who yearn for mothering.

Based on sharing this book with my patients, I suggest that if you want to listen to it, you will benefit from doing this at a time when you are ready to delve into your personal journey. Also, be sure to give yourself the time to absorb and process its messages.

Lang’s story telling is compelling opening up for the reader the timeless characters of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel & Gretel, Jack the Giant Killer, Jonathan Swift’s “A Voyage to Lilliput” from Gulliver’s Travels, Aladdin, Sleeping Beauty, Rumpelstilzkin, Why the Sea is Salt, Goldilocks, Blue Beard, Snow White and many others. 

My sister and brother (older than I) used to read aloud from, not only The Blue Fairy Book but the Red Book and the Green Book. These stories were the first I’d heard, and were so real I believed the characters would be present in my life. Grimm’s Tales ‘told’ by Lang becomes an exciting guidebook for a young person growing up. This aspect was ‘proven’ to me by the co-existence of these characters as archetypes in terms of life events and situations. My conviction is that the storyline, characters, and the progression of events in… show more.

I am a huge fan of the very-brief gothic. It’s so hard to do well; trivial jump-scares are easy, but to produce a meaningful effect in only a few pages takes real precision. Shirley Jackson holds the crown with "The Lottery," but my second favorite instance of a surprisingly quick read that produces a real gasp is Angela Carter’s mini-treasure, "The Werewolf."

It manages to be a fairy tale, feminist critique, a witch, and a werewolf story all at once—and, like the beast in the title, it may not be what it appears. Also wonderful to me are "The Company of Wolves," "The Snow Child," and the eponymous "The Bloody Chamber," that one a revisioning of "Bluebeard"—essentially, Carter updates all kinds of dark fairy tales, bringing out their subversive shadows for a savvy reader. Still so fresh to this day.