This is a mixed bag as some stories are excellent and some so-so. I was attracted by the name of the authors as I love some of them. Also discovered some new to me that I found interesting.
A reimaginng like this is not easy as those fairy tales dates back to thousand years and there's a lot of layers.
Some author were able to "own" the story and create something new.
I find hard to tell i love this or that story because this is a matter of taste.
If you love retelling and fairy tales you will surely find a story you love.
3.5 upped to 4
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

General review: Some were unfamiliar with no solid theme. Each story is very different. some modern, some historical, accompanied with the original tales on the back. And to be honest I don't get what "midnight" in the title has to do with these stories…

Individual review:
1. Sugarplum 3⭐️
2nd person POV. felt like there's a tiny fairy in my head telling me what to do. sapphic. winter festivities vibes

2. In the Forests of the Night 3,5⭐️
It was hard to follow the story at first but when the plot was getting intense I was immediately hooked. a quick mystery thriller about disappearance of girls in an Indian village

3. Say My Name 3⭐️
Ok that's what we called an "inspired" story. modern high school rivalry between programmers which one of them tried to blackmail the other using a fake name. would be fun if this developed into full length novel tho

4. Fire & Rhinestone 2⭐️
Ain't understand anything. Only get the bit of sunslayer lore and it's set in China

5. Mother’s Mirror 3⭐
Queer modernized reimagination of a fairytale. About the struggle of a girl who was expected to be the younger copy of her mother but she didn’t even feel right in her own body. TW transphobic

6. Sharp as Any Thorn 2⭐
If there’s no info about the fairytale inspiration I wouldn't know what this is about.

7. Coyote in High-Top Sneakers 2⭐
Story within story. The story jumped from scene to scene. I couldn't even make sense of what was happening. The only story related to midnight

8. The Sister Switch 2⭐
The story failed to grip me. I remember nothing

9. Once Bitten, Twice Shy 4⭐
Muslim reimagining where it's a red hijab instead of red hood, and the character is very pious. The original tale is still recognizable, so a nice story overall.

10. A Flame So Bright 2,5⭐
I didn’t really understand what’s happening but ok I guess

11. The Emperor and the Eversong 5⭐
OHHH THIS WAS GOOD! The tale of an emperor who intended to avoid death only to draw Death’s attention closer.

12. HEA 5⭐
CUTEE I LOVE THIS. Reversed Cinderella in the modern era where the main character, Ash, was a famous content creator celebrity and for one night he just wanted to get away from the spotlight and have some time with a boy he just met.

13. The Littlest Mermaid 3,5⭐
So WE land people were myth in this story. Interesting though, but the writing wasn’t the strongest aspect.

14. Just a Little Bite 5⭐
THAT WAS INSANE really effective reimagining with a familiar prompt from the original story. Love this it’s so thrilling

15. A Story about A Girl 4 ⭐
I thought this was just a story inside a story but is it though? The mystery was good. I liked it.

3.7 stars average


Sugar Plum by Anna-Marie McLemore
4/5
Considering this is one of the shortest stories in the anthology, it was quite powerful. There were beautiful descriptions and a real sense of pain coming through the pages; it was easy to connect to the main character. I really want to read the original fairytale of The Nutcracker now!

In the Forests of the Night - Gina Trelease
4/5
I'd never heard of the original fairytale, so I can't compare it to the original, but I found this one to be really interesting, tense, and I felt nervous throughout waiting for the ending.

Say My Name - Dahlia Adler
2/5
My least favourite of the collection. This was confusing and messy, and I can't work out if it was trying to be satirical with the main character's name turning out to be Renesmee Carlie? Cause honestly it was just bizarre, why is she named after Twilight?

Fire & Rhinest One - Stacey Lee
3/5
I enjoyed the message, and the protectiveness of the main character over her grandmother and their close relationship but honestly it was kind of boring.

Mother's Mirror - H.E. Edgmon
5/5
Okay this was amazing! Such a great twist on Snow White, it had a beautiful message, it was incredibly easy to connect to the main character, it was the perfect length... Just so good!

Sharp As Any Thorn - Rory Power
5/5
Really freaky and such a cool twist on Sleeping Beauty. It was incredibly tense and I was filled with anxiety reading it, which tells me how atmospheric it was! That ending was also so freaky!

Coyote in High Top Sneakers - Darcie Little Badger
3/5
Maybe I needed to have known the fairytale version of Puss in Boots (guessing it differs from the Shrek version), but I just could not work out where this story was going or really the point of it.

The Sister Switch - Melissa Albert
4/5
This was a new fairytale, and it was freaky! I found myself quite confused at times, but with the way the story was playing out, that confusion only added to the atmosphere and tension. I also think this would be really cool as a full novel!

Once Bitten, Twice Shy - Hafsah Faizal
3.5/5
I enjoyed the concept of this, but it didn't have any sort of creepy aspect that I would've expected for a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. It all just felt very convenient, the way it played out.

A Flame So Bright - Malinda Lo
3/5
I didn't really understand this one. It never seemed to end up going anywhere, and there was a strange age-gap.

The Emperor and the Eversong - Tracy Deonn
4/5
This was so interesting! A cool take on power life, and death, and I would really love to read a full novel version of this!

HEA - Alex London
3.5/5
I really liked the concept behind this and the commentary on the toll young fame can have on a person's life, but I think that the Cinderella aspect could've been amped up way more.

The Littlest Mermaid - Meredith Russell
3/5
A cool twist on The Little Mermaid, from the perspective of a mermaid, but it was really confusing and I don't understand how we got to the ending - it felt like I was missing a few pages.

Just a Little Bite - Roselle Lim
4.5/5
This was so creepy!! I found it to be predictable as to what the plot twist would be, but I really enjoyed the atmosphere and tension and was desperate to see how it would end.

A Story About A Girl - Rebecca Podos
4/5
This was pretty cool. I enjoyed the buildup and the story, but it didn't feel as atmospheric as I would've hoped, possibly because of the fact that over half the story was the main character telling someone a story and we weren't actually involved in what was really happening.

At Midnight captured some of my favourite authors through a particular niche I adore, that of fairy tale retellings.

For me, retellings need to have some sort of edge or spin to them in order to justify their narrative. I love it when these stories are updated for now, often by diversifying them or interrogating them through an intersectional lens. In this sense, At Midnight smashes it out of the park. This was a creative and highly original anthology, taking fairytale retellings to new heights. It very much felt refreshingly modern and tailored to our contemporary moment.

Stories that particularly stood out to me were those by Dahlia Adler, Tracey Deonn, Hafsah Faizal, Anna-Marie McLemore and Melissa Albert’s new fairy tale. Adler’s take on Rumplestiltskin was hilariously meta, drenched in popular culture and featured two completely twisted female protagonists that I fell in love with. Deonn’s writing is always so gorgeously entrancing and her take on The Nightingale was no different. This was a tale that utterly cast a spell on me and I still ruminate on. Faizal takes Little Red Riding Hood and transforms it into a heist, full of twists and turns. Faizal also added the representation of a hijabi protagonist, which brought such joy to my heart. For me, McLemore can write anything and I will eat it up everytime. Their take on the Nutcracker weighs heavy with emotional intensity, familial duty and a desire to be loved. It was a story that really resonated with me. Finally, I loved how Albert took us deep into the darkness of the woods in an intoxicating, tricksy new fairytale with all the evil bubbling beneath of the original Grimm tales.

At Midnight epitomises how good fairy tale retellings can be, with a pinch of magic suitable for every reader.

I enjoy fairy tales so was looking forward to reading At Midnight. I enjoyed most of the stories but there were a couple I didn’t really enjoy, mostly because the stories weren’t familiar to me so I struggled to connect with the story. I liked the diversity of the stories. They are all different and also touch on a variety of styles and genres and some are even LGBT friendly. I especially liked Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, The Robber Bridegroom and The Little Mermaid.

Taking well-known stories means it’s always going to be a tricky job to make them stand out. Some of the writers in this collection definitely do this better than others.
Each writer in this anthology takes their source material and offers a fresh take. My personal highlights were: Rumplestiltskin, Hansel and Gretel, Red Riding Hood and The Robber Bridegroom.
I found some of the stories hard to read, but liked the fact that we got to see quite varied approaches to modern concerns.
Thanks to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review this.

I thoroughly enjoyed this collection. Each fairytale had a fresh new take and there wasn't a bad one among them.

A fresh, modern retelling of 15 fairytales which I really enjoyed. There were the odd 2 or 3 that I didn't really like so much but those tended to just be the ones that I wasn't familiar with the original of.
I really like how these stories were given new interpretations and new life.

It is also LGBTQ+ friendly and very inclusive of other cultures and lifestyles.

As is to be expected with a collection of short stories, there were some I liked, some I didn't, leading to an overall rating of 3.5 stars (rounded down).

My favourite of the collection is 'Just a little bite' - a retelling of Hansel and Gretal that was unapologetically dark and after the story was left saying, good for them.

Some others that ranked highly were Mother's Mirror and A Story About A Girl.

Unfortunately, I did find that overall, I didn't enjoy many of the stories whose fairytales I didn't really know. Overall, my least favourites were Sugarplum, The Emperor and the Eversong and, unfortunately, HEA which I expected to like since I really like Cinderella retellings and the drag aspect.

Overall, if you like fairytale retellings, I actually wouldn't recommend this one to you. I think retellings do better when there's more space to develop the character's and create an engaging plot.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love fairytales. I mean, if you look at the books I've read you will notice that a lot of those books are fairytale retellings. So when I discovered this story collection I knew I had to have and read it. I was therefore incredibly happy that I found this book on Netgalley and that the publisher, Titan Books, approved my request for a review copy. And the nice thing about short stories? It's easy to fit one or two stories into the reading schedule every day.

What I loved most about these stories is the modern feel of most of them. The authors found the themes and messages of the original tales and wrote mostly contemporary stories containing all the important elements and the same messages and themes. That automatically added a lot of diversity to this collection. We meet characters with all kind of backgrounds, skin colors and sexual preferences and it never feels forced or out of place.

Like with every story collection I liked some stories more than others. Sometimes it's simply because I don't like the original fairytale to begin with (the originals are included, by the way, which is amazing!), which makes it hard to appreciate the retelling. In other cases it could be the writing style that didn't click or the tone of a story. However, that was all personal taste. All stories are of high quality and are unique and worth reading. I'm certain everyone will have other and personal favorites.

I personally missed the magic a little bit. I understand that the power of this book is how realistic the situations of the characters are, how the themes of the magical tales still work in the real world where we're stuck, but for me magic and fairytales are always a little bit connected. However, in a way this collection also reminded me a lot of Tell Me A Story, a tv series that had two seasons a few years back. And when I say that, I totally mean it as a compliment!