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trippalli's review against another edition
dark
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
A darky weird yet funny short story of 3 generations when the grandmother leaves her clutter filled house to get granddaughter after irreconceivable with her daughter, the mystery of the backstory, a sudden government interest in the clutter filled house and the glory and magic of the recently deceased magician unfurls itself in this story. I just read 3 ghost stories in a row, the first was in the 20s in New York City and bothfunny and terrifyingly scary (the Deviners) the 2nd is in Japan in a dilapidated garden and the tale of beautiful and honest hopefu lyet sad look at grieving that ended in beauty and relief (The secret Garden of Yanagi Inn). This book is a crazy ride, WWII automatons, magic, murders, glitter and family secrets, whoa! So much packed into a short story
eol's review against another edition
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
nataliya_x's review against another edition
3.0
“We both knew that it was real. We’d both seen her do things that only magic could have done.”Persephone Aim inherits the house and all the possessions of her deceased grandmother, a former stage magician, a formidable and controlling woman, and a “grubby hoarder”. The giant house is crammed with stuff top to bottom, with junk and creepy doll collection, and what seems to be occasional disembodied pieces of a strange “automaton” and a ghost jar. Persephone’s mother, estranged from the dead grandmother, is written out of the will but clearly is hoping to get something particular out of dead woman’s belongings and will stop at nothing to get what she wants. “Once again, I wondered if I might replace Grandmother as the opponent mother centered her life around.” Plus there are government agents looking for military artifacts.
“What was this house, if not a monument to held regrets? Glitter takes movement. By clutching it so hard, stuffing it into boxes, she’d taken away everything she loved about it.”
Sounds fun? Well, I thought so too, but then the abrupt few pages of resolution came, making me wonder what the hell possessed the author to stop at the novella length.
I’ve said before that novellas are tricky; balancing short length and sufficient story development is exceedingly hard. Cat Rambo’s Nebula-winning novelette Carpe Glitter unfortunately suffers from the size constraints. I am certain it would have worked so much better had it been expanded and developed into a novel - or if it had been cut shorter and transformed into a well-done short story. It would have avoided the awkward pacing and the overall choppy and half-finished feel.
“Imagine all the detritus a person creates during a lifetime. I’m not talking about trash—food wrappers and old boxes—but objects that we interact with, that we make: grocery lists and summer postcards, books we scrawl notes in during school, journals and letters and drawings.
And photographs. God, the photographs!”
In its short 60 pages or so it tackles a story of familial dysfunction, stage and real magic, murder and Nazi secrets, afterlife and ghosts, and years of loss and resentment. Or at least it *mentions* some of those, having not enough room to develop. It starts leisurely and unhurriedly, dipping in and out of family secrets and loss, and then takes a few sharp left turns and careens into the climax so abrupt and sudden that blink and you’ll miss it. The opening belongs to a slow thoughtful novel of family dysfunction aided by a touch of strangeness and magic. The closing belongs to a short story about magic, madness and its dangers. It does not flow well and lacks internal coherence in its choppy pacing.
I sighed. “What do you want, mother?”To maintain the pace and the expectations of well-laid out opening, this book needed about 60-100 more pages to explore the interesting bits it promised. Or maybe the opening should have been axed to a few brief scenes, keeping it consistent with the way it ended, for a lovely short story with hints at a bigger picture. Either way, it would have worked better.
“For you to be happy. When have I wanted anything else?”
“Plenty of times.”
Also, a minor gripe - this is a case of the cover not fitting the book, and the title not quite fitting the story. Yes, glitter is mentioned a few times - but it almost feels that it has been shoehorned to match the (admittedly great) title. That’s when expanding on glittery past of supposedly stage magician Gloria Aim would have helped. Otherwise it’s a bit silly, except for this line that works:
“Object after object, the beginning of the hoarding; the beginning of her guilt eroding the glitter.”But hey, it won the Nebula, which shows how little I know. Apparently there was something I failed to see here. And yes, the writing is quite good, no complaints there. But I stick by my assessment that although this is not a bad story, it’s also not as good as it should have been based on the expectations it sets for itself in its first half, and the rushed ending makes it underwhelming.
3 stars.
——————
My Hugo and Nebula Awards Reading Project 2020: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3295830569
barb4ry1's review against another edition
4.0
I loved the way Cat Rambo blends dark humor, fantasy and sci-fi elements, and family relations. Death can reveal secrets and the ones we discover in Carpe Glitter are interesting. It's short (60 pages), quick to read, and entertaining.
edebell's review against another edition
5.0
This suspenseful little novelette is tiny and fleeting (like glitter!) - perfect if you need a break or a night to escape. It's about a search through Grandmother's mystical items, a complex family dynamic, dark finds, and a symbolic question. It's sensory, interesting, and delightfully weird.
bookishparadox's review against another edition
2.0
There is a definite disconnect between the combination of the title Carpe Glitter with the bubblegum-pink cover stylized like a YA novel from 2005 with a ballgown and top hat, and the actual meaning behind the title and the story behind the cover. Carpe Glitter was the personal motto of the protagonist's recently departed grandmother, a stage magician and hoarder in her retired years. The novella is the musings, memories, and story of the protagonist as she works to clear out her grandmother's house, and the secrets that are hidden among the stacks of newspapers and her grandmother's doll collection. If you want something sparkly and pink, go elsewhere. But if you want an eerie look at personal responsibility to the past versus yourself, with a ghost and secret agents and obsession and casual murder and a life-size sentient nazi automaton that is for whatever reason evidently anatomically correct, then this is for you.
frasersimons's review against another edition
4.0
https://medium.com/springboard-thought/the-fantastic-microworld-of-our-grandmothers-in-carpe-glitter-fe01623908e6
'…when she left stepped off her stage, she left in a scintillating dazzle, like a fairy queen stepping off her throne.
All that shine. And at home?
She was a grubby hoarder."
Literary microworlds, such as cyberspace in cyberpunk, abound. But it is quite rare to find one that you haven’t come across before, let alone one that is also well realized. Carpe Glitter offers exactly that, and more, of course.
Persephone’s absolute character of a grandmother has passed away, willing her all the earthly possessions in her home. All she has to do is catalogue it all and then she can sell them. Easy right? Well… the house is actually three interconnected houses. And her grandmother was a hoarder… so it’s packed from corner to cupboard.
It’s, uh, a bit of a task, it turns out.
Over the course of the novella, Persephone undergoes the monumental (seemingly) task of sorting through all of these widely eclectic and, sometimes, kind of disgusting, if I’m honest, knickknacks and oddities, squirreled away who-knows-where.
Throughout, Persephone’s mind drifts from childhood to young adulthood as she moves from room to room, tossing in the memories of her life — revealing that not everything is as it seems.
Sure, there are the ‘normal’ tensions between her mother and grandmother, dynamics, no doubt, some people will be familiar with. And that would have been a perfectly lovely little novella.
I was on board with this sojourn Persephone was embarking on because Cat Rambo masterfully expounds on a hoarder's house, and her assets, into a world of discovery that encapsulates the complexities and feelings for the lives of grandparents surely most people have, or how I feel about mine, anyways. Just to imagine that feelings behind the discovery of those people we truly cannot comprehend when we are young is compelling and vivid.
Shrewdly, Carpe Glitter incorporates this with something that deftly conveys the many, many hoarder house encounters in my previous line of work. There is honestly nothing like it. You never know what people may be hoarding. I’ve been in houses where people hoard meat. Whatever the case, it is always a window into the mind of the occupant that can’t really be compared to anything else. Moreso with the added dimension of it being a loved one.
‘I scoffed. “You’re acting like all of this is real.”
He just looked at me, scorn twisting his lips.
We both knew that it was real.’
To then go further and literalize the fantastical nature of negotiating spaces such as this is simply ingenious.
When casting about for clues about her family's persistent strange nature, Persephone goes down a rabbit hole containing nazi experiments, hidden, magical artifacts, and even such items dripping with the mystique of evocative starlets that only previous eras could really convey in any measurable way.
Mysterious, lustrous, and smart — It is no wonder Carpe Glitter took the recent nebula award.
“A good magician never reveals their tricks.”
'…when she left stepped off her stage, she left in a scintillating dazzle, like a fairy queen stepping off her throne.
All that shine. And at home?
She was a grubby hoarder."
Literary microworlds, such as cyberspace in cyberpunk, abound. But it is quite rare to find one that you haven’t come across before, let alone one that is also well realized. Carpe Glitter offers exactly that, and more, of course.
Persephone’s absolute character of a grandmother has passed away, willing her all the earthly possessions in her home. All she has to do is catalogue it all and then she can sell them. Easy right? Well… the house is actually three interconnected houses. And her grandmother was a hoarder… so it’s packed from corner to cupboard.
It’s, uh, a bit of a task, it turns out.
Over the course of the novella, Persephone undergoes the monumental (seemingly) task of sorting through all of these widely eclectic and, sometimes, kind of disgusting, if I’m honest, knickknacks and oddities, squirreled away who-knows-where.
Throughout, Persephone’s mind drifts from childhood to young adulthood as she moves from room to room, tossing in the memories of her life — revealing that not everything is as it seems.
Sure, there are the ‘normal’ tensions between her mother and grandmother, dynamics, no doubt, some people will be familiar with. And that would have been a perfectly lovely little novella.
I was on board with this sojourn Persephone was embarking on because Cat Rambo masterfully expounds on a hoarder's house, and her assets, into a world of discovery that encapsulates the complexities and feelings for the lives of grandparents surely most people have, or how I feel about mine, anyways. Just to imagine that feelings behind the discovery of those people we truly cannot comprehend when we are young is compelling and vivid.
Shrewdly, Carpe Glitter incorporates this with something that deftly conveys the many, many hoarder house encounters in my previous line of work. There is honestly nothing like it. You never know what people may be hoarding. I’ve been in houses where people hoard meat. Whatever the case, it is always a window into the mind of the occupant that can’t really be compared to anything else. Moreso with the added dimension of it being a loved one.
‘I scoffed. “You’re acting like all of this is real.”
He just looked at me, scorn twisting his lips.
We both knew that it was real.’
To then go further and literalize the fantastical nature of negotiating spaces such as this is simply ingenious.
When casting about for clues about her family's persistent strange nature, Persephone goes down a rabbit hole containing nazi experiments, hidden, magical artifacts, and even such items dripping with the mystique of evocative starlets that only previous eras could really convey in any measurable way.
Mysterious, lustrous, and smart — It is no wonder Carpe Glitter took the recent nebula award.
“A good magician never reveals their tricks.”
crystals_library's review against another edition
4.0
"Carpe Glitter, my grandmother Gloria always said. Seize the glitter."
Carpe Glitter is a short story about Persephone who has to clear out her wealthy Grandmother's estate. Her Grandmother was a hoarder and in the will Persephone was forbidden from selling any of the items until she finished sorting all of the items. Most of the items seem worthless, what does her Grandmother expect her to find? Persephone's grandmother was a famous magician in Las Vegas and believed in true magic. Maybe there are magical artifacts?
Why have Persephone's mother and grandmother fallen out? Why is her mother so desperate to help her clean out the house?
I really enjoyed this short story. It was the perfect pre-Halloween read.
Carpe Glitter is a short story about Persephone who has to clear out her wealthy Grandmother's estate. Her Grandmother was a hoarder and in the will Persephone was forbidden from selling any of the items until she finished sorting all of the items. Most of the items seem worthless, what does her Grandmother expect her to find? Persephone's grandmother was a famous magician in Las Vegas and believed in true magic. Maybe there are magical artifacts?
Why have Persephone's mother and grandmother fallen out? Why is her mother so desperate to help her clean out the house?
I really enjoyed this short story. It was the perfect pre-Halloween read.
literati42's review against another edition
2.0
Carpe Glitter is a strange little bit of magic realism. It is a very internal story, focusing on the lives of the few main characters largely in isolation from the rest of the world.
Overall it was not for me. The characterization fell flat for me. There were only a handful of characters, but I feel like I don’t know any of them. The horror elements were fairly boring overall. I was not impressed.
It may be more interesting to fans of the Night Circus, as it read in a similar way.
Overall it was not for me. The characterization fell flat for me. There were only a handful of characters, but I feel like I don’t know any of them. The horror elements were fairly boring overall. I was not impressed.
It may be more interesting to fans of the Night Circus, as it read in a similar way.
allisonwonderlandreads's review against another edition
3.0
Thanks to NetGalley for sending me this copy to review!
I don't read many novellas, so I was impressed with the fast pacing of this little fantastical mystery. It was quirky and engaging from start to finish.
What I loved most were the vignettes that shed light on the relationships between Persephone, her mother, and her grandmother. With few words, the author was able to sketch the contradicting mixture of love and animosity among them all to great effect.
What I struggled with were the limitations of such a short piece. Explanations were either pithy or absent to the point that it left me with whiplash trying to follow along.
I recommend this as a quick and unusual read where family provides the battleground for a fight over a magical object.
I don't read many novellas, so I was impressed with the fast pacing of this little fantastical mystery. It was quirky and engaging from start to finish.
What I loved most were the vignettes that shed light on the relationships between Persephone, her mother, and her grandmother. With few words, the author was able to sketch the contradicting mixture of love and animosity among them all to great effect.
What I struggled with were the limitations of such a short piece. Explanations were either pithy or absent to the point that it left me with whiplash trying to follow along.
I recommend this as a quick and unusual read where family provides the battleground for a fight over a magical object.