Rating: 3/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy bought at YALC
In this unique YA anthology, thirteen acclaimed, bestselling authors team up with thirteen influential BookTubers to reimagine fairy tales from the oft-misunderstood villains' points of view.
These fractured, unconventional spins on classics like "Medusa," Sherlock Holmes, and "Jack and the Beanstalk" provide a behind-the-curtain look at villains' acts of vengeance, defiance, and rage--and the pain, heartbreak, and sorrow that spurned them on. No fairy tale will ever seem quite the same again!
I want to start this review by saying that I don't usually read anthologies because they tend to leave me wanting more and I hate knowing that I won't get that. I am especially greedy when it comes to books. I had no choice but to buy this gorgeous book though, as the wonderful Samantha Shannon had written a short story for it and I've never missed anything that Samantha's written, so I picked up a copy at YALC and got her to sign it for me.
Because You Love to Hate Me is an anthology of stories written by YA authors. These stories are about villains but have been reimagined. 13 booktubers gave the authors a prompt to do with a well-loved story/villain and they then took control of where they wanted that story to go. It's a seriously fabulous idea.
I didn't really like all of the stories in there and I completely expected that because not everyone can like everything but there were some brilliant ones in there so I'll share my favourites with you.
My Top 7
- Jack - Ameriie
- Gwen & Art & Lance - Soman Chainani
- The Sea Witch - Marissa Meyer
- Beautiful Venom - Cindy Pon
- Marigold - Samantha Shannon
- You, You, It's All About You - Adam Silvera
- Sera - Nicola Yoon
My favourites were mostly based around villains and stories I was really familiar with; I think because I already had a connection with them. And then I weirdly chose the ones by my favourite authors. I wish their names had not been at the start of the chapters because I'm not sure if they were only my favourites because I knew who they were written by. *cough* Samantha Shannon, Nicola Yoon and Adam Silvera*. Whereas Jack focused on Jack & the Beanstalk, Gwen & Art & Lance focused on Arthur Pendragon (funnily enough), The Sea Witch focused on the story of The Little Mermaid and Beautiful Venom focused on Medusa.
I was going to include the prompts the authors were given but I think that's too much of a spoiler and I think you should enjoy guessing what prompt the authors were given by the 13 booktubers involved.
On to the booktubers. After each story, there was a 1-2 page commentary on the booktubers' chosen prompt and I really hate to say, I didn't like it. At all. I don't mean this to come across badly but I just really wasn't interested in reading anything that wasn't the stories. It wasn't that it was poorly written, or that it wasn't funny (some of it was!), I just had no interest.
I really enjoyed the anthology as a whole and the stories listed were absolutely phenomenal and I'd happily read a book based on them. Especially Adam Silvera's and Nicola Yoon's...those would be sensational books, that I would pick up in a heartbeat. As always, the anthology left me wanting more and I would happily give all 7 stories listed above, a 5/5.
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