Reviews

Madame Zero: 9 Stories by Sarah Hall

betweenbookends's review against another edition

3.0

I really loved Hall's The Wolf Border, a few years ago when I'd read it. This collection was much more mixed for me. The stories in this collection are dark, sensual, gritty, intense, and unexpected. Thematically, in some way or the other, they explore wildness, the feral, untamed side of the human psyche in deceptively simple, sharp writing that still manages to be quite lyrical. It moves between realism, surrealism, speculative and dystopian. A handful of stories including Mrs.Fox, Case Study 2, Wilderness were really good and unsettling. But the rest of the collection to me felt quite forgettable. Most of the stories are quite episodic and lacking in a resolution which I usually don't mind, but they also weren't all that memorable. The last story of the collection, Evie, was a tad too perverse, and depraved for my liking and kind of left me with a sour aftertaste of the entire collection.

spickett's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

whogivesabook's review against another edition

1.0

Continuing my mad descent into the darker side of short stories, this one was recommended and it was a deep disappointment. Don't think I'm the target audience for this one.

The back says that it aims to 'inhabit a hinterland between the natural and urban, the mundane and surreal, human and animal.'

I didn't get that sense at all. Everything felt really controlled and a little vengeful. Like they were written to accomplish something, rather than express something.

I liked the stories Theatre 6 and Luxury Hour. They were short, sharp and interesting. The rest... I felt like they were urban, mundane and human. So not at all a hinterland experience.

The writer isn't bad. I think I would have liked this more if I could recognise the sort of upper middle class world it evokes.

Some great lines. Skillfully written. But they don't amount to much despite all they have to recommend them.

I'm particularly sad because I really enjoyed The Beautiful Indifference, another collection by her.

I've been recommended The Electric Michelangelo. Anyone read anything else? Something to tip my opinion back to positive?

lesleylovestea's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

thestoryofts's review against another edition

dark reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

chaoticbookgremlin's review against another edition

dark reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

phrambles's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

annabarbarabittner's review against another edition

4.0

Recenzowanie zbiorów opowiadań zawsze mnie doprowadza na skraj moich zdolności pisarskich. Podczas lektury odczuwam wiele emocji, poszczególne teksty trafiają do mnie mniej lub bardziej, a gdy skończę książkę, mam w głowie mętlik i pamiętam zaledwie fragmenty albo niektóre sceny.

Teksty Sarah Hall opowiadają o przeróżnych kobietach znajdujących się w przełomowych momentach ich żyć. Wszystkie te sytuacje mają związek z ich relacjami, które albo się kończą, albo wystawiane są na próbę. Hall wchodzi w środek historii, ale nie miałam trudności w podążaniu za nią, a następnie tworzy często zaskakujący świat lub scenę. Bohaterkami jej opowiadań są kobiety, które przeszły jakąś traumę, które nagle zaczynają się zachowywać zupełnie inaczej, a wręcz irracjonalnie. To będą sytuacje zagrożenia, niepewności, animalistycznego lęku o życie.

Ciąg dalszy: https://przeczytalamksiazke.blogspot.com/2023/02/madame-zero-sarah-hall.html

wendoxford's review against another edition

4.0

Love Sarah Hall's imaginative writing, her view of the world and her fantastic non sequiters that stop you in your tracks at the end of all these stories...feral, breathtaking and fabulous...

jasonfurman's review against another edition

4.0

Madame Zero is an excellent set of stories in the vein of Samantha Hunt, Karen Russell, April Ayers Lawson, and other recent short story writers who depict women on the verge with an uneasy mixture of the real, the fantastic, and the ambiguously in between. In the first story a woman turns into a fox, upending her marriage as one might expect, but ultimately forming a tighter bond with her husband. Other stores are a report on a child escaping a commune, a doctor trying to save a pregnant woman in a world where abortion has been banned, and another where climate change has led to constantly destructive winds. But all of the stories focus not on the scenario but on the characters—who are drawn vividly, sympathetically, and utterly realistically.