For lots of us fairy tales have a significant impact on us from a very young age, this book uses that power to help you unlock the hero within you!

A self help book that looks at fairy tales for tackling personal obstacles. It is a cute book and I did like. But it depends on what you want from this sort of book. This I would say is for more creative types.

Fairy Tales Can Change Your Life; Unlock your future with creative exercises inspired by storytelling by Alison Davies was a magical book a perfect guide for the adult who still fosters their childhood-self! ! I felt so lucky to get a copy for myself! I have shared on my goodreads, bookstagram, and booktok!

We first engage with fairy tales in childhood and they never leave us. From the "rescuer" Prince Charming to the scary, shapeshifting wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, the characters, symbolism and narratives in these stories are embedded deep within our psyches.

This book offers a whole host of tips, creative activities and inspiring illustrations to help you draw on the latent power of fairy tales and apply their magic to your everyday life. These include storyboarding your own fairy tale to boost your imagination, devising a quest to build energy and confidence, and identifying your inner hero to improve your problem solving.

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This book uses fairy tales and folktales as a metaphor for personal growth and development. Included are techniques for storytelling, exercises and visualizations to transform life in the area of love, fears and phobias and to juggle multiple roles and responsibilities. These traditional stories provide a template to explore life's difficulties and to shift perspective. Recommended for storytellers working in personal growth settings and to those who would love to create a "happily ever after."

I've read a few self help type books in my life, but haven't stuck with them or their tips. This book is something different and very fun that you'll want to take part.
Don't see it as a life fix/self help manual, it's more of a journey or quest. Grab you lunch in a basket, or your party dress and glass slippers or spinning wheel and see where your journey takes you. The chapter based exercises are based around the structure of a story and help you uncover those hidden talents or missions in your own Heron (you).

As side from the fun and creative exercises is a history of fairy tales. This side of it I found fascinating to see how far back goldilocks goes and that the stories are teachings.

An amazingly different book that takes a fun approach at uncovering your hidden hero or adventurer.

Grab this book for mindful moments and discover your own fairy story.

I must say I do love a self help book. I must also say that I loved fairy tales. This book appealed on so many levels. It does give you an interesting way of looking at your life and seeing all the possibilities that lie ahead. A good concept but no life changing, ground breaking stuff here.

I picked up this book because I love fairy tales and was curious about what it would be about. I am not a Non-Fiction kind of person, but I was going to give it a shot. I liked how the author really did take fairy tales and make them relatable in the "real" world, and I also loved that there were a few fairy tales I have not heard of but definitely will go look up because of this book.

Such an uplifting book
5 stars

As soon as I turned the first page, I started to smile with this book. I’m a romance reader so fairytales are almost my religion - so I immediately felt that this book was written for someone like me. But anyone who feels an affinity with the fairytales of your youth will, I’m sure, get a lot out of this book.

The book starts with a quick and interesting history of fairytales and sets the scene for the rest of the book which is split up to fit with the narrative structure of a fairytale. The chapters are:

The Power of Storytelling
Starting Out
Tales of Transformation
Love and Relationships
Fears, Desires and Phobias
Changing Roles and Responsibilities
Creative Ideas
Further Reading

Each chapter is written in such a warm and friendly manner - it’s so easy to read and makes you feel positive about making your life better. While this is essentially a self-help book, it feels more fun that that. Some self-help books make me feel low and then attempt to build me up - this one just felt affirmative and uplifting.

There are also exercises throughout the book, all centered around themes of fairytales, that you can use to find purpose and, according to the blurb, gain confidence, find romance and discover your path to self-fulfilment.

I really enjoyed this book. It felt inspiring, interesting and manageable. Some of the techniques and exercises are those that I have seen before, or been taught in therapy, but the fairytale twist makes things so much more fun and accessible. This is a short book but that makes it so much easier to read and re-read when needed. Definitely 5 stars.

Fairy Tales Can Change Your Life examines common writing patterns found in fairy tales. It also offers dozens of creative challenges to encourage you to create your own tales. This was a fun book, and I am curious to try several of the writing exercises. Overall an average but valuable tool.

As the title implies, this is a cute self-help book that focuses on using the structure and creation of fairy tales as a framework for tackling personal obstacles. This is a bit more on the "soft" side as far as self-help books are concerned. Though I think Davies has put a good amount of work and thought into this book, it will be better suited for folks who just want to explore a new way of tackling the issues that face them in life. It's not so much for those of us who need more structured, evidence-based methodologies (my preference in a self-help book). For individuals who get a lot of emotional and mental fortitude from writing (creative or otherwise), this book could be a worthwhile read.

This book has been previously published as 'Be your own fairytale', and the new title is perhaps a little clearer on the intent of the book.
If you liked 'Women who run with the wolves', this is a modern take on using the symbolism of fairy tales for personal development.
I liked the idea of fairy tales as a survival kit for navigating our lives.
The book looks at the origins of fairy tales, then framing the reader as the hero of the story on their quest. It then turns to stories as analogy for transformation, romantic tales and stories where we triumph over darkness. I think the exploration of stories where we have to juggle different roles might resonate for a lot of us.
There are exercises that might be fun to try, and might also provide us with insight.
I liked the illustrations, and the way it was written.

This Wonderful Book has Allowed me to take a look at these fairy tales from the another direction.
(Thanks to Net Galley for this Book.)

The cover had me immediately. I love a self help book I just couldn’t really get into this one. I think I’ve read too many self help to get much out of this book.

Or maybe I’m too old?

I was excited to dive into this book - I am fascinated by folklore and oral traditions, and the cover is stunning. However, I found the contents to be...lacking. It was a surface-level examination of fairy tales and I found the lack of exploration of cultural context held the book back. Because it is so superficial, I struggle to see how this can be translated to real growth, but I do like the activity ideas.

I was drawn to this book as I loved the idea of the book being about fairytales and storytelling. It was inspiring and so well structured. Each part of the book filtered into the next seamlessly.

The writing was engaging and fun and made it a really accessible read. It was detailed and got my creative mind thinking. Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and author, for a chance to read and review this book.

A useful book for making fairy tales part of your own psychological exploration. It’s set up like a self-help book would be, which, of course, it is.

I see this as a useful handbook for people who are not expert on fairy tales. Serious fans might find it a bit superficial, but most people aren’t fairy tale experts! I think if you’re a regular fan of fairy tales and are looking to use them to understand yourself and your life, this is a good book for you.

I was drawn to Alison Davies Fairy Tales Can Change Your Life while reading fairy and folk tales for a book group. Davies’ book sounded like something worth mentioning during book group discussion, and in a sense, it is.

Although I had read the publisher’s description, I didn’t expect a self-help book. Probably the title should have told me that, but I’m inclined to see literature as changing one’s life in other ways. Despite not being a self-help book fan, I found Davies’ approach somewhat interesting, such as viewing life experiences through recurrent fairy tale themes and even improving one’s future life by imagining and following one’s own fairy tale. As interesting as the idea may be and as much as we all might like to live our own fairy tale, I haven’t been convinced that fairy tales will solve problems or accomplish goals. Perhaps readers drawn to self-help books will feel differently.

That said, my current book club goal of reading fairy tales did lead me to discover a few previously unfamiliar tales, and I came away with some activities I would enjoy trying out on my granddaughter.

Thanks to NetGalley and Watkins Publishing for the advance reader copy.

This is such an interest book. I really like the whole premise of the book and especially liked the link to the different fairytales. The author writes with a lot of knowledge. I enjoyed the activities in this as well and found myself exploring myself and other ideas deeply.

I’m not sure what I was expecting from this book but the title should have given away that it’s just a self help book, albeit with a twist by comparing yourself to the characters of fairy tales! There’s a lot of creative writing involved to map out the direction you want your own fairy tale to go.
Interesting concept & a few fairy tales I hadn’t heard of!
I’d give it 3.5/5 which is probably a bit unfair as it didn’t do much for me but then I didn’t follow the ideas suggested! There was also a strange chapter that had a bit inserted between paragraphs which hopefully will get sorted in a final edit?