Hey everyone, it's Jananie from the channel The Story Ain't Over, and
welcome back to another episode of #EpicBookRecs.
So this is the monthly series that I do here on the Epic Reads channel where I
recommend a bunch of books based on a certain theme.
We've done a lot of really cool themes before, including an earlier version of
a theme that I'm doing today, which is YA retellings.
So these are any books that I have found to be retellings of other stories,
other histories, other fairy tales that I really enjoyed, or
I'm planning to pick up myself.
If you wanted to watch the previous video where I recommended retellings,
it's linked in the playlist down below.
But today I have ten new recommendations of retellings that I think are just
awesome and that you should definitely check out.
So without further ado, let's jump into the books.
So the first one I have is A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro.
I've recommended this book multiple times.
It's actually one of my favorite YA series, mystery series.
And as you can tell from the title of this book,
it's based off the Sherlock Holmes books.
So in this series, Sherlock Holmes is actually a teenage girl instead,
she is Charlotte Holmes, and she is the descendant of Sherlock Holmes.
And then we also have the descendant of Watson, who is Jamie Watson,
who's the narrator of the series.
And who is telling the tales of the various adventures that he and Charlotte
get into as they meet and get to know each other in a prep school in Connecticut.
Each book in the series is its own contained mystery, so
I really enjoyed each one individually.
But I think as a whole series, it's really great to see Jamie and
Charlotte's relationship develop.
And overall it's just a really fun time if you like Sherlock.
All right, the next one is one of my favorite retellings ever and
that is This Dark Endeavor by Kenneth Oppel.
And this is actually a retelling of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
It takes a lot of liberties from the original story,
this is very loosely based off it.
But basically it imagines Victor Frankenstein as a teenager with a twin
brother and childhood love, Elizabeth.
But I would say the crux of this story is that Victor's brother, Conrad,
is actually deathly ill.
And so Victor's sort of determined to find a way to save his brother.
And when they stumbled upon the dark library within the Frankenstein Chateau,
they discover some dark intersections between nature and
science, and a few dark ways to potentially save Conrad's life.
And from there it gets really creepy and really, really cool.
If you're looking for a bit of a horror, if you're looking for something slightly
inspired by Frankenstein, this is definitely the one to pick up.
I really, really enjoyed it and it's the perfect dark read,
if you are looking for one.
Next we have The Afterlife of Holly Chase by Cynthia Hand.
This is another really loose retelling, and
it's inspired by A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
So in the Christmas Carol if you don't know involves Scrooge, this very grouchy
man, dying and meeting these three different spirits of Christmas.
And he is sort of shown the error of his ways and
how you should have a bit more Christmas spirit.
And so a similar thing happens to the main character in this book, Holly Chase.
She's visited by these three different ghosts on the day that she dies and
she basically fails the Scrooge test.
She fails to redeem herself and so she is forced to become part of something called
Project Scrooge, where she becomes one of the ghosts that gets to visit these other
Scrooges who have not been leading their lives in a good and generous way.
And this is just a really fun and interesting take on A Christmas Carol.
It's a really fun holiday Christmas read as well.
But I think Holly Chase as a character was just really fun to follow,
she is that anti-hero hero.
And there's a bit of a romance in this as well when she is tasked with being one of
the ghosts for this guy that doesn't really seem like a Scrooge.
All right, this next one is not so much a retelling of a fictional tale but actually
of some history, with some extra elements thrown in and some magic thrown in.
So that book is The Kingdom of Back by Marie Lu.
This is one of my favorite books ever.
And it actually takes the story of Mozart and his older sister Nannerl and
tells their story.
With a dash of magic thrown in,
with these stories that they used to tell each other in their carriage rides between
performances of this mysterious place called the Kingdom of Back.
And so Marie Lu basically took these elements of history and
these stories that they used to tell each other and
makes it a real thing in this fictionalized version of their lives.
And so the book actually starts when they're very young and
then goes to when they're a little bit older.
And it was just a really interesting look into the sibling relationship that
they had.
But also the ways that Nannerl was really overlooked as a musician and
as a person because of her younger brother's talent,
even though she was very talented in her own right.
So overall it's a really cool book but a very stunningly written one as well.
And I think the magical aspects were just so enchanting to read about.
All right, this next one is one that I haven't read yet but
I absolutely love the story that it's based off of, so
that is Within These Wicked Walls by Lauren Blackwood.
And this is an Ethiopian-inspired retelling of Jane Eyre by
Charlotte Bronte.
So if you're unfamiliar, Jane Eyre is a gothic horror novel by Charlotte Bronte
from the 1800s, and it's one of my favorite gothic horrors ever.
It's got a lot of spooky vibes but also some feminist vibes, and
it's just a great story overall.
But I do think that this book will probably take it in very cool directions.
And this one's got a little bit more magic to it.
Our main character Andromeda is an exorcist, or she's training to be one, and
she cleanses households of the evil eye.
But when her mentor unfortunately throws her out right before she's about to get
her license, she is left without a job and trying to figure out what to do.
And this is when a handsome young heir named
Magnus Rochester hires her to cleanse his house.
But of course, he's a little bit of a prickly man, much like Mr.
Rochester from Jane Eyre.
And the book sort of continues from there as the main character is forced to
exorcise his house and figure out what's sort of going on in there.
It seems like it's gonna take the really creepy aspects of Jane Eyre, but
also the romantic aspects of it, and bring it to life and
I'm really excited to see how it goes.
And I also think that it being a more diverse retelling will be really cool.
The next book that I have is Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim.
And this one sounds super cool.
It is inspired by the fairy tale The Wild Swans,
which depending on the source is by Hans Christian Andersen or the Grimm Brothers.
But it is also inspired by some East Asian legends and stories, and
the author sort of weaves them all together in this novel.
And so the book follows our main character Shiori who has a stepmother named Raikama.
And because of some things that go on at the beginning of the book,
Raikama banishes Shiori from her kingdom and turns her brothers into cranes.
And curses Shiori to silence, saying that for every word that she speaks,
one of her brothers will die.
And so Shiori is banished from her kingdom and wanders alone and
is trying to find a way to sort of break this curse and stop Raikama's power.
And ends up uncovering a dark conspiracy to seize the throne.
This involves a lot of magic, a lot of curses, and fairy tale aspects.
And I also believe it involves a romance,
and overall it just seems like it's gonna be a really beautiful YA fantasy.
And I absolutely love any sort of fantasies that involve folklore and
fairy tales because I just think it makes for a really enchanting read.
All right, this next book is by a really popular author, and it is a very, very,
very loose retelling of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, and
that book is a Chain of Gold by Cassandra Clare.
So actually this entire series, this trilogy by Cassandra Clare,
The Last Hour series, is sort of a retelling of Great Expectations.
Cassandra Clare has mentioned that it is a major influence on the story, and
you can sort of see how some of the characters line up with the characters in
Great Expectations.
But again, it's super, super loose.
I think the overall plotline is vaguely inspired by Great Expectations.
But otherwise there's a lot of differences.
If you're unfamiliar, Cassandra Clare writes a lot of Shadowhunters series,
which basically involves an alternate version of our world where there's
something called the Shadow World.
Where demons and monsters can sort of cross over into our mortal world.
And so there are these protectors called the Nephilim, or Shadow Hunters,
who are tasked with hunting these demons and monsters and
sending them back to their realms.
And they are their own society and have their own politics and things going on.
And these books all follow different Shadowhunter main characters.
And this series in particular is set in the Elizabethan era at the beginning of
the 1900s.
And involves various characters and some really angsty romance,
which I absolutely love.
So highly recommend, it's one of my favorite Shadowhunter series, and
it will definitely give you some Great Expectations vibes.
All right, this next one is also another favorite retelling of mine, but it's also,
again, a really loose one, it's very much just inspired by the original tale.
And that book is These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong.
This book is a very loose retelling of Romeo and Juliet.
And it is set in 1920s Shanghai and involves two different gangs in Shanghai.
So a Russian gang called the White Flowers and
a Chinese gang called the Scarlet Gang.
And so our two main characters from Romeo and Juliet are called Roma and Juliette,
and they're each from one of these gangs.
And so obviously these gangs hate each other and they are star-crossed lovers.
But this book also has a bit of a magical aspect, involves a monster and
a plague running through Shanghai and decimating these two gangs.
And so Juliet and Roma are forced to work together to figure out what's causing this
illness, this plague, and
they start to realize it's some sort of monster that is lurking about the city.
This is a duology, so this is only the first book.
And I have so far have only read this one,
so I'm really curious to see how it's gonna end in the next one.
All right, we're on to the final two books on this list,
and both of these are inspired by the same original story or subject matter, and
that is the legend of King Arthur.
So the first one is The Guinevere Deception by Kiersten White.
I haven't yet read this one but I'm really excited to because its sounds really,
really cool.
It's a slightly different take on the legend of King Arthur,
set in sort of the same time period.
And basically, in this version, the Princess Guinevere is going to Camelot
to marry King Arthur, a man she's never met before, who is a total stranger.
And the reason she is going is because the Great Wizard, Merlin has conjured up this
plan to have her marry King Arthur in order to protect King Arthur and
be there when no one else can be to protect him.
But what no one knows is that Guinevere actually has a secret.
She is actually a changeling who has given up everything to protect Camelot and
King Arthur.
And so she is brought into all of the politics and
falling in love with King Arthur potentially, I'm not actually sure.
And there's knights and all of this drama going on.
And I think it's gonna be actually really cool and
I'm interested by the changeling aspect and the magical aspect as well.
So really excited to pick this one up because it seems like a really interesting
take on the legend.
Alrighty, the final book on this list is, again, another King Arthur retelling or
based off of the legend of King Arthur, and that is Legendborn by Tracy Deonn.
So this book is actually very loosely inspired by King Arthur.
It has aspects that are directly inspired by the legend of King Arthur, but
the story overall isn't really a retelling.
Basically this book follows our main character, Bree,
who is reeling from her mother's unexpected death.
And before her mother died,
Bree was intending to go to this pre-college program at UNC Chapel Hill,
but her mother was totally against it for some unknown reason.
And so Bree ends up going anyways after her mother dies, and
she gets wrapped up in this secret society called the Legendborn there.
And she finds herself delving more into their secrets when she realizes that they
might have something to do with her mother's death.
And from there we start to find out that the Legendborn are this society of people
who believe that the legend of King Arthur is real and
that the different knights were real, and that they had descendants.
And so all of them are descendants of these different knights and
King Arthur himself.
And they've also got versions of Merlin as well and different kind of magic.
And they are sort of tasked, similar to the Shadowhunters in Cassandra Clare's
books, to protect the mortal realm from these demons and
other things encroaching on the mortal realm.
Overall, it's really, really interesting, and
the politics in the Legendborn is really interesting.
And I love the way that it is inspired by the legend of King Arthur, and
the different ways that the author makes us believe one thing but
turns that on its head by the end.
And there are some really, really great twists in this book as well.
I also really loved how the book had some examinations of race and privilege and
Bree's own position as a woman of color in this space that is dominated by
people with generations of power.
And it was just overall really, really interesting, and a really engaging book.
It also has a pretty interesting love triangle going on,
which I actually really appreciated and thought was super cool.
And I'm excited to see where it's gonna go in the next books because I actually
really liked both love interests, but I'm sort of rooting for one in specific, so
I wanna see how it goes.
But yes, if you're looking for a really interesting take on King Arthur in our
modern day, this is definitely the one to pick up.
And with that said,
those are all the retellings that I wanted to tell you about today.
All of these sounds super cool.
A lot of them are some of my favorites.
And some of them are ones that I'm hoping to pick up very soon.
I think it's just so interesting to see how these authors have
taken these original stories and morphed them in a very cool and
interesting way, whether they have taken a modern take on it, or
just a slightly different take on the original story.
Overall, super cool.
And I think you should definitely check them out if you're interested.
But I would love to hear from you guys, what are some of your favorite retellings,
YA retellings of other stories.
I think there are just some really interesting ways that retellings can
come to life.
As always, thank you guys so, so much for watching.
I am Jananie from the channel This Story Isn't Over, and
I will see you in the next episode of #EpicBookRecs.
Bye.