Mix-Tape Mondays: For Those With a Sweet Tooth

Back in action, for this installment of

I bring you a carefully crafted and perhaps overly theme-adherent playlist for

Sweetly by Jackson Pearce

This update of Hansel and Gretel is the second in Pearce’s dark fairy tale trilogy (preceded by Sisters Red, a Red Riding Hood update, and followed by Little-Mermaid-reimagining Fathomless. I have serious sweet tooth and Hansel and Gretel is maybe my favorite fairy tale of all time, so I had entirely too much fun putting this together.

1. Gone Away – The Offspring

The novel opens with the loss of a sibling, and nothing encapsulates that feeling for me more than Dexter Holland’s keening.

2. Another White Dash – Butterfly Boucher

After being thrown out by their stepmother, brother-sister duo Ansel and Gretchen make a cross country road trip from Washington to South Carolina in search of a new place to call home.

3. Chocolate – Snow Patrol

Sophia’s gingerbread house specializes in everything chocolate, but the lyrics of this song also speak to Ansel and Gretchen starting over in a new town with hope for a clean slate.

4. Sugar, Sugar – The Archies

Sophia is sweet as, and Ansel and Gretchen are both soon enamored by their saccharine savior.

5. Candy Girl – New Edition

A song for one side of Sophia, the one that wins hearts and charms even the most curmudgeonly codger in town.

6. Gunpowder and Lead – Miranda Lambert

Gretchen learns to defend herself.

7. I Want Candy – Bow Wow Wow

A song for Samuel.

8. The Sweet Escape – Gwen Stefani feat. Akon

Ansel dreams of taking Sophia and his sister away from their new home, but he doesn’t have the full measure of his lady love.

9. Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) – Eurythmics

Preparations for the chocolate festival are colored by mounting questions and sinister omens. What is Sophia hiding?

10. Maneater – Hall and Oates

This is not the spoiler you think it is, promise. Just a song for the finale.