Kissing This Book Good-bye: Samantha Wanner

To be honest, I didn’t really have a favorite story. I struggled with this book, and there weren’t any stories that stuck out to me. More often than not I found myself feeling confused, which I don’t like. I didn’t like that the stories didn’t have clear endings. I almost felt as though without an ending, I didn’t understand the point of the stories. I didn’t read them all, but some that I read were The Tale of the Handkerchief and The Tale of the Hair. I really didn’t like The Tale of the Hair. I felt like the whole point of the story was worthless. At the end of the story, the old woman taking care of the blind girl says to her that she wouldn’t be at peace until she found the girl a man. But she was the “man” in the story the whole time. I also didn’t like the “ending” of this story. It appeared as though the old woman became blind, or at least injured her eyes. And then they just sat together, blind. I just found myself wondering what the point of the story was. Out of the stories that I read, I felt like The Tale of the Handkerchief was the most accurate for today’s times. The girls ended up not choosing the paths that were favored by their parents. This is the way things used to be, but people, especially women, are more independent today. If they don’t like something, they aren’t afraid to change it.

It was mentioned in class that kissing a witch wasn’t something that was acceptable; it’s usually a prince that’s being kissed. Traditional stories usually don’t emphasize women and their story, so the title could be a representation of that. It kind of gets you to thinking that maybe the stories aren’t going to be like you thought they would be. It could also have something to do with just the female relationships. Rather than kissing a prince, they could kiss a witch, which is usually a woman. Or they could just have a relationship with a woman, whether it be just a friendship or something more.