Fierce fairytales offers us the opportunity to rediscover the stories we grew up with from different perspectives. Nikita granted our characters with Substance. They are no longer black or white but multi-dimensional. We get to explore their internal conflicts and their struggles but most importantly how they respond to them. The question that kept popping into my head while reading was: How could I have been drawn to such one sided narrative growing up? Nikita redefines our heroes and Villains. Rapunzel does not wait for a man to save her; she knows too well that her strength and her intelligence are what can free her.

I read every poem out loud to intensify the impact it had on me. I was soothed by the melody and the rhythm. I could have read her book in just one sitting but when I read the first poem I knew that I have stumbled upon something that was incredible. I could not blow it by readying it hastily.  Fierce fairytales is too valuable for that. What an incredible joy it is for me to appreciate a book that makes me reflect on love and society.  This book invites us to be purposely critical. It wants us to question our belief system. It urges us to stop looking at matters in a binary way. It tells us that balance is the key, and that leaning on the extreme sides of the spectrum leads to our downfall. It reassures us by saying that compassion is good only at the right dose. This book sees beyond the wall that has been set before our eyes and invites us to discover the reality for ourselves.  Thank you Nikita Gill

The stepmother’s tale recreates the story of Cinderella by fleshing the stepmother’s character out. Nikita humanizes a character we see as utterly evil. She starts by saying she was not born evil. Her life was a chain of familiar and difficult events which led her to use the pettiness of people to her advantage. She uses her beauty, a beauty too overly praised by everyone, to get out of her situation (of being a widow with two children and no money). Her observation of injustice and shallowness during her struggle made her conclude that only evilness could help her.  What is remarkable is that, her adopting a devilish behavior ends up protecting her. At what cost? you may ask but the true question is; who gave her the price to pay? This poem puts the spotlight on the characters we believed to be fine, naive, and even good, but are in fact in full light; superficial, dull, judgmental TOO.

I guarantee you will never read your favourite tales the same way again. Fierce fairytales will suck you in like quicksand but you will come out of it wiser.