Books are beautiful time capsules that can transcend centuries, continents, and languages. However, the greatest novels sometimes lose their luster when put up against modern-day perspectives. This is not to dismiss the original novels; there is a reason they are still being read and debated today. Rather, sometimes we just want all the beauty of the story and its iconic characters without the baggage of the past.
The books in this list are all retellings of famous novels from a fresh perspective. Some of them are modernizations with all the plot of the original and some just tell the story from a different character’s point of view. For those who are curious, a link to the original novel will also be included with every retelling; just in case readers want to make their own comparisons.
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Before Juliet, Romeo Montague fell in love with Rosaline Capulet, but she broke off the match. Now realizing that not only is Juliet’s reputation at stake, but also her life. It’s up to her to save her cousin.
A reimagining of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet.
This title is also available for checkout as an eBook on Hoopla, in eAudio on Libby, and in eAudio on Hoopla.
When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. While many narrative set pieces of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the rivers banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin…), Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.
This title is also available for checkout as an eBook on Libby and in eAudio on Libby.
An imaginative, feminist, and brilliantly relevant-to-today retelling of Orwell’s 1984, from the point of view of Winston Smith’s lover, Julia. Julia Worthing is a mechanic, working in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. It’s 1984, and Britain (now called Airstrip One) has long been absorbed into the larger trans-Atlantic nation of Oceania. Oceania has been at war for as long as anyone can remember, and is ruled by an ultra-totalitarian Party, whose leader is a quasi-mythical figure called Big Brother.
This title is also available for checkout as an eBook on Libby, eBook on Hoopla, and in eAudio on Hoopla.
Vampire Lucy was one of Dracula‘s first victims, and she’s spent her immortal life trying to escape him. In 21st-century London, Lucy meets Iris and falls in love, but they both have pasts from which they need to break free.
This title is also available for checkout as an eBook on Libby and in eAudio on Libby.
Four sisters, each as different as can be. Through the eyes and words of Jo, their characters and destinies became known to millions. Meg, pretty and conventional. Jo, stubborn, tomboyish, and ambitious. Beth, shy and good-natured, a mortal angel readily accepting her fate. And Amy, elegant, frivolous, and shallow. But Jo, for all her insight, could not always know what was in her sisters’ thoughts, or in their hearts. With Jo away in New York to pursue her literary ambitions, Meg, Beth, and Amy follow their own paths.
A reimagining of Alcott’s Little Women.
This title is also available for checkout as an eBook on Hoopla.
A retelling of Barrie’s Peter Pan. Jordan was once a Lost Boy, convinced she would never grow up. Now, she’s twenty-two and exiled to the real world, still suffering withdrawal from the addictive magic Dust of her childhood. With nothing left to lose, Jordan returns to the Island and its stories–of pirates and war and the heartlessness of youth–intent on facing Peter one last time, on her own terms. If that makes her the villain…so be it.
This title is also available for checkout as an eBook on Libby and in eAudio on Libby.