The Trouble with Fairy Tales

A Memoir

By: Plum Johnson

Narrated by: Plum Johnson

The long-awaited second memoir from Plum Johnson, bestselling author of They Left Us Everything.

The Trouble with Fairy Tales is a wise and insightful reflection on the relationships that sprawl across a lifetime. In it, Plum explores how we often sacrifice our independence and identity in our love lives, falling for the fairytale notion of “happily ever after”, and how it can take years, and many detours, to fulfil the most important relationship—the one with ourselves.

Ripe with the humorous anecdotes, charming insights, and aching revelations so characteristic of Plum’s style, the book is our window onto her reinvention of self as she moves through the various roles that many women inhabit: from compliant child to loving mother, rebel wife, artist, and successful writer.

Plum’s writing urges her readers to turn inward to reach a deeper understanding of their own tangled relationships. Funny and resonant, The Trouble with Fairy Tales is the kind of striking personal narrative that will stir and inspire women of all ages.

Read They Left Us Everything instead

Oh, what a disappointment. I don't say that often but I listened to They Left Us Everything over the summer when it was free with Audible Plus (but SO worth a credit. It's about 10 years old but was one of my favorite memoirs I read in 2024). When I saw she had another memoir coming out, I put it on my wish list and got it today--the day it was released. THAT'S how much I was looking forward to hearing more about her life. Alas. It was just OK. Had I not read her first memoir, maybe I would have given it 3 stars but knowing what she's capable of writing (her first memoir won a prize in Canada), this was just so lacking. None of the charm or originality of the first one, which I think I will spend a credit on and listen to again.