Title: Nothing you haven't seen before
Review: Though Coover is undeniably a talented writer, he decides to take a very well-worn path for this book. It's a deconstructed fairy tale, one of approximately 18 billion, and the themes are familiar. Yes, the old stories were often appallingly misogynist and affirmed rigid patriarchal values, including a distrust of the other and the outsider. Yes, this was bad. Coover scores some points for not completely inverting everything- the witches aren't quite innocent, just no more brutal than everyone else- but the whole story is pretty one-note and forgettable. It offers nothing new, it just deconstructs the old, and without offering real change it's simply a grim and ugly affair.
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