Other authors didn't balance everything I loved about the original series - the character development, the humor, the soap opera elements, etc as well.  I wasn't into a lot of these, actually, although there were only a couple pages long and sort of 'what if this had been different?' type stories. 

It's interesting seeing the characters living off-planet, or in 50s drag races, but I only really truly enjoyed a couple of these and that wasn't enough to save this anthology. 

A quaint suburb. A quiet little reading group. A very naughty reading list…

Estelle sets up a book group in order to increase custom to her struggling small town cafe, what follows is more scandalous than she could have ever imagined…

As the first book club meeting flounders, Estelle suggests a spot of erotica to spice up the members lives – with trepidation the decision is accepted.

Inspired by their sizzling reads, this group of shy suburban readers shake off their inhibitions and discover a new side to themselves with some tantalising results.

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{I actually read this back in February, but I think I forgot to add my write-up for it here, so just tagging it on now}:

Estelle owns a bakery / coffee shop that's had a slow-down in business. She gets the idea to start up a book club in the shop to maybe get people to come in, buy pastries & coffee and talk books. The first meeting gets a solid number of people in, but they seem unimpressed with her choice of reading classic literature. Fearing that they're all going to pack up and leave after only one meet-up, Estelle gets a spur-of-the-moment idea to make the book club one where they study erotica through the ages. No surprise, people are all for this! (BTW -- it's all ladies in the group, except for one guy who says he's there for "observational purposes", material for his PhD thesis). The more naughty books they cover, the more these people get more comfortable going for what they want in life -- and not just on the bedroom side of things, but general life goals / dreams / aspirations. They learn to stand up for themselves, use their words, and be heard where maybe they weren't before. All from reading softcore porn! LOL

One of my favorite reads of 2015! I wasn't expecting much from this initially, figured it would just be a fun, light read-it-and-forget-it kind of thing. O.M.G. This book was SO much fun! It was fluff without being saccharine, naughty without being offensive, and deep & real without coming off as highbrow & pretentious. I also loved that each of the ladies in the group represented a different age / time of life of women -- you had the 20-something college girl, the 30ish newlywed, the 40something divorcee and the 60something retiree trying to figure out the "now what" of her life. And they all want great sex and affection but maybe feel lost, not knowing how to express their wants & desires without feeling like the world is going to judge them for actually liking sex.

I felt like this book addressed a very relatable topic in a realistic and humorous way. Everyone in this story sounded like people I could actually know, which is more of a skill in writing than you might think! Highly, highly recommend this one for some great laughs and some really poignant, thought-provoking moments as well!

Monsters have it tough. Besides being deeply misunderstood, they suffer from very real problems: Mummies have body image issues, Godzilla is going through an existential crisis, and creatures from the black lagoon face discrimination from creatures from the white lagoon. At heart, these monsters are human; after all, you are what you eat. Quirkily illustrated, Sad Monsters hilariously documents the trials and tribulations of all the undead creatures monster-mad readers have grown to love, from vampires and werewolves, to chupacabras and sphinxes, and even claw-footed bathtubs.

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As cute as this book is, be forewarned -- this book is NOT for children! That being said, there's a lot of satire here that adults will eat up :-) Frank Lesser writes up little short stories that look at the behind-the-scenes lives of some of history & literature's most well-known monsters and villains. And he doesn't just use short story format -- there's also sections where the stories are told through craigslist-like ad listings, diary entries and my favorite, a few passive-aggressive notes {I especially liked the PA note from Dorian Gray's roommate begging him to please take down that creepy painting already! There was also a PA note from a closet monster that had me giggling a good bit :-) }.

March 8: Wound up hitting snooze for six more months. Barely had enough energy to rampage to the bathroom, let alone through a city, but finally rolled out of bed and destroyed Tokyo. Again. Starting to wonder, what's the point? They're just going to rebuild.

 

~entry from Godzilla's journal, from "Questioning Godzilla's Existence", Sad Monsters

I liked that Lesser worked in a fair amount of modern culture into these tales --- there's the story of Frankenstein's groom, which talks about both Frankenstein and his gay lover feeling like outcasts in society; a story that looks at the idea that maybe vampires aren't allergic to the sun necessarily, but maybe just battle really crippling social anxiety, so that's why they stay in all day; a look at the hipster Chupacabra; a letter of reference for a job the Abominable Snowman is applying for, where his ref says that he's "a go-getter, gruff at first but a good heart, and good with Excel" X-D. Lesser also offers up a pretty entertaining stories about zombies running from humans trying to attack, Medusa on a blind date, and a parody on how to identify the "Maneater" from the famous Hall & Oates song. 

Accept the fact that genies rarely update their style. I once made the mistake of telling Shalazam that the "fez look" went out of fashion with the Ottoman Empire, and he turned me into a camel. We laugh about it now, but at the time I wanted to spit in his face.

 

from "How to Find the Genie of Your Dreams", Sad Monsters

above: hipster Chupacabra

So that's what I liked about it. A couple negatives I could see: 1) this was not a huge issue for me but I thought I would give a heads up to conservative readers -- a couple stories in this collection do incorporate biblical satire. One story involves a merman preacher giving a sermon to his underwater congregation and when referencing the crucifixion of Jesus, he says Jesus was "crucified on two planks of cedar and then grilled. He died for our fins." I found this particular mermaid themed story to be one of the least funny of the collection, not so much because of the biblical satire, I just felt the humor was getting a little forced and was falling flat for me. But I thought I would mention this as a heads up to any readers that may want to avoid possible offense.  2) Speaking of the humor falling flat, I felt like the collection, as a whole, started off really strong, really entertaining. Somewhere around the halfway mark, it almost felt like Lesser was starting to run out of great ideas but needed more to make a respectable length for even a small book, so the stories in the second half seemed more like they were going for the easy laugh. Not to say I didn't get anything out of the later stories, I still enjoyed them. I just felt the best works were definitely more toward the start of the book. 

Charming and thoroughly modern, Rosie shares with us her piquant and utterly engaging views on life and love, marriage and mating, desire and destiny as she tackles the sometimes thorny business of making her way through life. These are not, I should say at the outset, tales written for the benefit of good and well-behaved girls who always stick to the path when they go to Grandma's. Skipping along in their gingham frills - basket of scones, jam and clotted cream upon their arms - what need can these girls have for caution? Rather, these are tales for girls who have boots as stout as their hearts, and who are prepared to firmly lace them up (boots and hearts both) and step out into the wilds in search of what they desire. Taking her cues from the Brothers Grimm, Rosie - a thoroughly modern Little Red Riding Hood - tells us of love and desire, men and women, heartache and happiness. Beguiling, clever and funny, Rosie Little's Cautionary Tales for Girls is a sheer delight. With wit, simplicity and directness, Rosie offers her clear-eyed, slyly funny and rueful take on life, love and everything in between.

Amazon.com

The title on this book can be pretty misleading for a lot of book shoppers, so let me just say right up front that this collection of short stories is NOT, repeat NOT, for young girls. Cute as the title and book design is, these stories actually feature themes of loss of virginity, adult women dealing with fat shaming (largely within the family), painful and awkward moments of first love (or that first experience of unrequited love with the wroooong kind of guy), dangers of creeper guys, and one story even talks about domestic abuse. So yeah... unless you're cool with having those important life talks with your daughter way early in her life, I'd say this one is better off going to late teen girls or older.

"It was likely that he loved her because she was lovely, and not because she was perfect." ~~ from the story "Lonely Hearts Club"

Now, that being said, I ended up really enjoying this collection! I wasn't too sure how much I was going to enjoy the book after the first couple stories, but I stuck with it and am so glad I did. While there is some darker, more depressing material in a number of the stories, nothing is too creepy or scary until you get to "The Wardrobe". That's the one story where I got to the end and thought Wait... whaaaat just happened?! It went from being something that just seemed to be about an odd relationship into something that could have been a Twilight Zone episode! {I dunno, maybe it was}. "Eden" is a great story that creative types will love because it talks about an artist who is trying to work through hardcore procrastination. She has the best intentions to start painting, but it ends up taking her three days to set up her still life. Then her items for her still life don't look quite perfect, so she wants to shop for what's missing. Then she decides she needs to sharpen all her art pencils (nearly 100). Then friends come to visit. We've all been there. Also, the last story, "Rosie Little Joins The Dots" had just the perfect ending, I thought. 

 

A new life spread out before her like a bolt of beautiful green cloth, and she knew that she held the scissors in her own hand. But into this new life she had brought a stowaway.

~~ from the story "Lonely Hearts Club"

I really liked all the asides that the Rosie Little character interjected into the middle of the stories as the other characters are going through all their individual dramas {" A Word From Rosie Little On ___"}. My favorite was Rosie Little's story on cake forks and the analogy she does with that. Just brilliant :-) I definitely want to check out more of Danielle Wood's works but in the process of trying to look up her books, I discovered that she is an Australian author, and her titles seem to be reeallly limited here in the U.S.

:-( But I'm pretty good at tracking down obscure titles over time, so I'll let you know how the others are as I get them! 

>> One of the stories in this collection teaches the reader how to sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in Latin :-)...

as she says, "just in case you were wondering"

We all know the stories of Cinderella, Snow White, and Rapunzel.  But have you ever heard of Alice Bingley-Beckerman, Reena Paruchuri, or Molly Miller?  Of course you haven’t.  Not yet.  What these girls have in common with their fairy tale sisters is this:  they are the stepdaughters of three very evil stepmothers.  And they’re not happy about it.  They think they are alone in their unhappiness until they arrive at Putnam Mount McKinsey, a posh boarding school located in lovely rural Massachusetts.  Here is where they will plot their revenge.  But first they have to meet.

Amazon.com

This was a mildly cute story, loosely inspired by classic fairytales, about a group of teenage girls who all meet at a boarding school -- it seems like they were sent to this school because the parents thought it would "make things easier" for everyone -- and bond over sharing their "evil stepmother" stories. All their fathers have remarried, mostly to women that the girls point out are barely older than them. Some of the biological mothers have been lost through death, others through divorce after the fathers have their mid-life crises. The girls decide to form a group/club called The Poison Apples, where they hash out ideas on how to take down these evil stepmothers.

This book had its cute points but the plot wasn't all that. The stepmothers, as a whole, didn't seem THAT evil, though there were a few moments here and there of catty remarks & manipulation from the stepmothers to the stepdaughters that made me think okay, that was a little mean. The "take down" plotting element actually doesn't play a huge part in the story, it's mostly about the girls just building their friendships with each other.

A couple parts of the story got just a hint darker than I was expecting (for example, one parent checks themself into a mental hospital, which understandably really affects the child; also, fifteen-sixteen year olds bemoaning the fact that they don't have more sexual experience weirded me out a bit) but for the most part the tone is in that light, fast-paced, almost hyper voice that you find in many YA books. Personally, if I read too many books in that style in one stretch it drives me batty but I'm guessing it'll appeal to young teens or tweens. I did like that the storyline brings up important topics for today's world such as cultural diversity, effects of divorce on children, and how to successfully blend families after parents remarry. Also, there's the important message of revenge not always being as satisfying as you'd think.