Books like There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby — picked by fans

As a writer obsessed with folklore and magical realist fiction, I adore this book!

Based loosely on the Russian fairy tale of the same name, The Snow Child is set in 1920s Alaska and balances the ethereal arrival of a magical child with the harsh reality faced by homesteaders in an unforgiving landscape. My favorite elements in this book are also primary themes I aspire to in my own writing: characters who face hardship with grit, perseverance, and a deep connection to their wild home. 

The author was born and raised in Alaska, and you can tell by the detail and specificity in her writing. In this novel, the natural world truly is the main character, to breathtaking effect.

Machado is a master storyteller, a writer who plays with form and structure and our narrative expectations to create entirely new ways of telling tales. This collection was her groundbreaking debut.

I’ve always loved fairy tales and folklore for the ways they play with character archetypes, repetition, and deceptively simple story shapes. Machado does the same thing here, upending our ideas about wives, lovers, and monsters with these tales that might trick you into thinking you know what’s coming next—until she flips you over and turns you around. She’s a new Brother Grimm, a fairy-tale writer for the modern age.

Oyeyemi plays with symbol, myth, and magic in all of her books, and this gorgeous novel is no exception.

This book turns the Snow White story inside out to tell a twentieth-century tale of race, beauty, and family. I’m always blown away by the range of Oyeyemi’s imagination and the depth of her skill. She is an absolutely extraordinary storyteller.

Oh, what a delightfully chilling and decadent tale written by one of the most celebrated female gothic writers of the 20th century.

Carter leads us into the manor of a wealthy and powerful businessman who has recently been widowed, yet has chosen to take another young bride quite quickly. As he guides his new wife through each luxurious room at his estate, she is devoured by all its opulence and given the keys to each room. She may roam and play wherever she desires and conduct herself as she wishes, save for the one key to the one room that is forbidden.

A modern and mysterious take on the classic Greek myth, Pandora’s Box, with echoes of “The Robber Bridegroom” by The Brothers Grimm. It is a delicious read. 

This book shows us that not everyone had a devastating experience under the Soviets. I love it because it’s about average people and (somewhat) average events that become extraordinary because of the political circumstances. 

What was it like for a teenager to date when the KGB might be watching? How did families manage to cheer at military parades of sophisticated equipment when they couldn’t find toilet paper to buy?

These wonderful stories entertained and informed. They weren’t funny, but a few made me chuckle from the absurdity. 

Reading this book felt like drinking a pitch-black winter night. That’s the best way I can describe it. Somehow, Valente managed to masterfully bottle the frigid sensation of a bleak midwinter and transport it to the page.

I’ve always loved this book for how mythic and grandiose it feels even in the short amount of pages it has. This is something that I feel would come alive in an animated adaptation where you can really capture the eerie and surrealist imagery used.

Koshchei the Undying, Vassilia the Beautiful, the Firebird, and Father Frost whispering through the forest: "Are you cold, my children? Are you cold?" The fairy tales of Russia, like their folk art, are beautiful and jewel-coloured.

My own fairy tale book was partly inspired by the Russian tale of Sister Alenushka and Brother Ivanushka, where the little boy is told he must not drink water from the hoof-print of a goat—but he does, and turns into a goat!

There are Russian tales of ambitious cats, grumpy bears, and snakes who marry princesses. These vivid tales have inspired artists, playwrights, and composers. Every child should read them.

I love, love, love this book, for so many reasons. My top two are: 1) It sits squarely in that odd ‘fantasy in a technological world’ niche (Imagine 1984’s world filled with fairies!) 2) It has an odd, dark humour feel to a book that I like (think Gaiman or Pratchett) And oh! The characters? Funny, clever, nuanced. Bum that was three wasn’t it? I’ll come in again.

This is a fairy tale. I’ll state this upfront because at first glance, it’s a bit of a hard read. And why is it a hard read? Because—to me, anyway—it feels like wish-fulfillment fantasy on steroids. It’s like the rantings of a terribly abused boy. Of course, much fiction—especially fairytales which is this book’s genre—is wish fulfillment. But the story feels very uncomfortable. Mio is so over-the-top happy about having been transported into the kingdom of his father the king that one feels as if one is listening to a pitiful delusion. I found myself reading the book with two minds. One mind kept saying, “Dive into the reverie and joy of a boy who has found his dead father in a faraway land and who discovers that he’s important to the world.” And simultaneously, my other mind was thinking, “Oh my heavens! This little boy… show more.

I adored this book. It was so brilliant that I couldn’t write for a week after reading it. The crisp, clear, poetic text and darkly-edged brilliance of this fairytale absolutely blew me away. 

The imagery and fairytale elements resonated with so many of the old childhood fairytales that it took the story to another level. Added to that was the adventure, with stakes that ramped up with every page. For me, it wasn’t just an unputdownable story but one I didn’t want to leave.