A version of this article originally A version of this article originally appeared on appeared on 20somethingreads. Whether you read fairy tales as a child or whether you're simply aware of them because you are a person who is alive and does not live under a rock, fairy tales have played a role in your reading experience. Unfortunately, when Disney sunk his claws into them, he did a disservice that lasted for decades: Most of our perceptions have been colored by his saccharine, censored interpretations. Because of him, the words "fairy tales" invoke images of childhood and whimsy and musical numbers that are too catchy for their own good. Contrary to what Disney's cultural stronghold would have you believe, the idea that fairy tales are for children is a relatively recent phenomenon. They used to function much in the way that adult books do: They were escapist, but they were also strange and often startlingly gory or sexual for example, if your only exposure has been Disney, than you might not know that in the real "Little Mermaid," the prince marries another woman and the mermaid almost murders him but instead succumbs to a weird watery suicide

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Tilly Castillo thought she lost her chance to be a contemporary dancer, but when a summer job in New York City appears, nothing can stop her from saying yes—not her mother, not the other cutthroat dancers, and not even her fears of the big city. When I was 5, I told a fairytale lie. I was in kindergarten.