Tales

by Ramona Meisel

Tales is a hotchpotch of previous published short stories, reformatted and reimagined to paint the bittersweet taste of never forgotten memories. The genres range from romance to tragedy to thriller and while they sometimes only last a second, the aftermath of each story will follow you for a while.

Genres: Poetry, Mythology

86 pages, ebook

First published February 1, 2018

About the author

Ramona Meisel is an artist, writer and mythology nerd living in Germany. She’s a strange human hybrid of mended bones and a soul ripped apart at the edges. Her tongue is sharp enough to cut and her mind keen enough to bleed. When she’s not haunting the net she’s perfectly content to lose time in prose and poetry.

Reviews

[Dev · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of a 2.5 really but I rounded up because I think it's more of a case of 'it's not you it's me'. And by that I mean that I'm definitely too tired and asexual for such a large amount of this type of prose-poetry. There's a lot of random stuff in here, mostly from her modern Greek gods universe and also some fairytale retellings, but pretty much all of it is centered around people making horrible relationship choices and at this point I just can't relate at all.

[Maddy Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3,5)

I read this a few weeks ago and was pretending since then that I just had forgotten to write a little something about it. But the truth is I just have no idea what to say. Despite the fact that Tales isn't my favorite Ramona Meisel book, I still really enjoyed it. And so I'll just be repeating myself by saying (again) how madly in love with Ramona's words I am.

[Cinnia Literary Raccoon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmm, I had mixed feelings about reading this. I mean, I really do love fairy tales/folklore and myth retellings. On the other hand, I had to keep taking breaks while reading this because the edgy/gritty/gory + explicit content in the retellings kept getting to me after a while. I can appreciate the new spin on things, but I guess I don't really enjoy my reading material putting me in a bleak mood every time I pick it up. The imagery/discriptions are wonderfully vivid, though.

[Littlebookterror · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have very similar feelings towards this collection as I had for Songbreaths.
This is my sixth collection from her that I have read and I grow a bit ... boried with her poems. There has been quite sometime in between each collection, so it's not that I've been oversaturated with poetry. And I do like that Meisel follows similar themes in her We Were Gods series that spill over into her other works. Sadly, I feel that the themes and phrases are getting overused without offering much else.

She realises that some people don’t need to be
fixed but others need to be broken.

This time around I noticed I enjoyed the poems the most, who are not mythology adaptions or offer a different point of view from her usual choices. Some are Loving Dorian Gray // Five Kills // Peter Pan is not a boy anymore // There’s something better than killing the one you love.
As usual, there many dark topics and feelings discussed, which I quite enjoy. Especially "Truth and dare for experts" made me feel quite mortal. I enjoy reading about these messed up characters and their sinister thoughts.

Nothing says forever like a headstone with two names on it.

Sadly, I was also let down by the limits of what this collection explores, especially considering that the rest (of what I've read) from her catalogue is no different.
The romances all seme to read the same to me. All feelings are overshadowed somehow and grittier, lovemaking is often hurtful instead of soft, and interactions are laced with curelty. You take notice after the fifth romance and they all mix up now in my head since they are all so similar.
Quite a few of the poems have a very similar plotline, for example, "The lies and truths of love", "7 days of love", "eventually you dream of the world, swallowed up in flames", "falling in love with Deimos for dummies" and "Romancing a God" always ends with insanity. They all feature a New Adult contemporary setting, two people falling for each other, metaphors about love that hurt and bleed.
I noticed that the word "biting" is quite overused. Everything is biting, lovers are biting each other, teeth are biting into flesh, the cold, the walls, and so on. In 29 poems there are 21 uses of the word "bite". On the same note, 18 of the poems contain counting, whether it is Arabian or Latin, written, in and out of order. That's just too much.

[Sargun Saddhar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another gorgeous anthology by Meisel. Truly fall in love with her words and the characters she writes about.

[Sparrow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favourite of Meisel's. None of the writing seemed particularly memorable or even poetic in nature. I liked the examination of different relationships, especially the mythological or fable ones. But I don't think I'll find myself reading it again.