How To Survive This Fairytale
by S. M. Hallow
Reviewed by Galen Strickland
Posted July 11, 2026
A fairly recent book, published in January 2025, that is already out of print due to the publisher unexpectedly shutting down. You could search for a used copy using the ISBN 9781998664023. The few I've seen through bookfinder.com are high priced, and the one on eBay from India is probably bogus, but the author says the situation may be reversed in the future. I was lucky to get the e-book from Bookshop before it disappeared. I like to experience an author from their beginnings when possible, and my next advance review book from Net Galley is another by Hallow. Her debut novel, The Halls of the Dead, comes out next month from Harper Voyager, so it should be readily available from most retailers. Hallow has had other stories published in anthologies and a few online venues. By page count I assumed this was a short novel, but word count is what matters for the different story categories, and it is identified as a novella on several sites. It is a re-telling of multiple different fairytales, a quick read with mostly very short chapters, the prologue being just one sentence. The lead character is Hansel, although he prefers just Hans. He loses his sister Gretel (real name Margrethe) early in the book, then he flees the gingerbread house. It is written in second-person, with the narrator continually telling Hans what has happened, what might happen, or what he should do next, including multiple times saying "That is not how your story should end. Try again?" In that sense it is similar to a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book.
Hansel was being fattened up by the witch so that he would be more delectable when cooked. He did gain weight, but fooled the witch when she asked to feel his hand. The bodies of previous victims who had died before being cooked were still in the same cage, so Hans held out one of their emaciated hands instead. Gretel was then thrown into the oven, but she was able to drag the witch inside with her. When Hans finally got out of the cage he ran. I will only mention a few of the other people and animals he later encounters so as not to spoil (much), plus I might get them out of order. One I had to search turned out to be from the Brothers Grimm, but they just collected stories from others, and there are many variants of six brothers who had been turned into swans. Their sister Gertrude (real name also Margrethe) was cursed to be mute until she was able to return her brothers to their human bodies. The alteration to this story is that Hans falls in love with one of the swans, and when he later meets Cyrus he had one arm and one wing, since the transformation had not been complete. It doesn't bother Cyrus since he longed to be a swan again, and that does occur even though he and Hans marry. Some of the people Hans encounters do not figure directly in his life, since he only sees them from a distance, or hears about them from others, but doesn't interact with them. That includes Rapunzel, but Rumplestiltskin never appears. While foraging for food while he is with Gertrude and the swans, Hans is taken by the Fair Queen, and he is mentored by her huntsman, and later rises to that position.
The Fair Queen curses him into servitude, as she had the previus huntsman, so Hans is tasked with tracking and killing those the magic mirror deemed fairer than the Fair Queen. He has to return to her and witness her eating the hearts he brings her, plus he is cursed so he cannot reveal those incidents. There is a difference in that story too, but I won't reveal it. There is a mention of a sleeping princess, but Hans never sees her, and he had already learned he was not able to transform Cyrus (whom he called Favorite when he was a swan) with a kiss. He does reunite with Gertrude later, who had become a princess by marrying a king, and he runs into Cyrus who chose not to live in the palace with his sister, and his five brothers had run away for various reasons. Perhaps they resented being turned back into men too. The trauma of being fattened by the witch compelled Hans to seek out an apothecary, who devised a potion that would prohibit him from tasting or smelling what little food he allowed himself to eat. He still grew tall and strong, but even though his story encompasses many years, he was still recognizable to Gertrude and Cyrus when they finally met again. The main point to the book is that we are all responsible for shaping our own lives, our own stories, even if it means starting over many times. But also not to forget that others help shape our stories too, and perhaps we can help them if we choose wisely. There isn't much here that is truly unique, but that doesn't mean it can't spark ideas for imagining how our own lives might develop. Recommended.
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