The poem The Raven, blacked out to create a new narrative, remained cool in concept by struggled to shine in between such impressive prose entries. Happy Days, Sweetheart (The Tell-Tale Heart) by Stephanie KuehnĪ high-achieving diverse female student always comes in second to the mediocrity of her white male competitor at their private school- so she decides to balance the scales of justice and eliminate him in this gruesome tale of cold revenge. The Glittering Death (The Pit and the Pendulum) by Caleb RoehrigĪ modern tale of a serial killer who targets women, and the girl who finds herself a live captive in need of escape-extremely gritty, and another parable on modern-day feminism.Ī Drop of Stolen Ink (The Purloined Letter) by Emily Lloyd-JonesĮdgar Allan Poe meets the future in a world where information is coded in biometric tattoos and one girl is sent to uncover a CEO’s treachery in the high-stakes world of the tattoo-data black market. Tied as my favorite, this prose retelling of the poem follows the summer seaside hypnotic reality of the narrator as she questions whether her illicit love for Annabelle Lee was the cause of Annabelle’s death in this historic New England tale perfect for fans of f/f star-crossed lovers. Night-Tide (Annabelle Lee) by Tessa Gratton JacksonĪ tale twisted to a diverse feminist revenge story, this entry watches the narrator as she exacts a clinical end to the man who mocked her and her family for not being Jamacian enough with deadly results in modern-day New Orleans. It’s Carnival! (The Cask of Amontillado) by Tiffany D. The perfect opener to this anthology, this historically-minded tale about a manor house experiencing the entrancement and death of its lord was the PERFECT amount of spooky. She Rode a Horse of Fire (Metzengerstein) by Kendare Blake

To keep this review shorter than its original anthology, here are my quick thoughts and ratings on each of the 13 tales: Having the original Poe tales in the back of the collection was such a good call-I actually read each tale in tandem, from new reimagining to old inspiration to compare and contrast each entry.

I couldn’t believe how nuanced and imaginative these retellings were, and how eerily similar they felt to their original inspirations. In His Hideous Heart, editor Dahlia Adler has compiled a truly impressive shortlist of some of Poe’s most famous tales, reimagined for a 2019 audience. Dark, diverse, feminist, eerie, memorable, and twisted-welcome to the new generation of Edgar Allan Poe.

His hideous heart book