Why You'll Love This
Turns out the fairy tales you grew up with were heavily censored — and the originals are so much weirder and funnier than anyone told you.
- Great if you want: dark, bawdy folklore delivered with gossipy, irreverent commentary
- The experience: episodic and snappy — easy to devour in bursts or one sitting
- The writing: Gotauco writes like a brilliant friend who did all the research so you don't have to
- Skip if: you prefer serious literary retellings over comedy-forward storytelling
About This Book
Fairy tales were never really for children — and Liz Gotauco is here to prove it. Fcked Up Fairy Tales* pulls back the sanitized Disney veneer to reveal the genuinely weird, dark, and often scandalous stories that humans have been telling each other for centuries. Gossipy animals, murderous royals, and shape-shifting suitors populate these pages, all tangled up in the kind of messy, adult situations that the Brothers Grimm buried and modern adaptations buried deeper. These are the versions that actually explain why fairy tales lodged themselves so stubbornly in the human imagination.
What makes this book so readable is Gotauco's voice — sharp, conspiratorial, and genuinely funny, like a brilliant friend who just discovered something outrageous and cannot wait to tell you about it. The retellings themselves are paired with gossipy asides about the tales' contested origins and the often-fascinating people who first wrote them down, which gives the whole collection an addictive, layered quality. You're never just reading a story; you're getting the story behind the story, delivered with the kind of irreverent wit that makes 368 pages disappear faster than you'd expect.