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bookishsapphicshay's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
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? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Animal death, Body horror, and Child abuse
Moderate: Eating disorder, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt
Minor: Medical trauma
ceallaighsbooks's review
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
“In the night, dead fish had floated to the surface of the lake. There must have been hundreds of them, all drifting near the shoreline. Their bodies lying together, intimately, flank to flank, open eye against open eye. The waves brought them toward us in a scum of silver corpses… We watched the fish wash in, hesitating like driftwood in the shallows, inching farther and farther up the beach. Each wave slid flesh against flesh, bringing them together and apart in little sighs, only to spit a couple soft, silvery bodies onto the sand, and drag the rest back without them. "Look at that," my grandmother said, and I nodded. It looked like nothing I had words for, like the end of the world.” — from “Algal Bloom”
TITLE—Fruiting Bodies
AUTHOR—Kathryn Harlan
PUBLISHED—2022
PUBLISHER—WW Norton & Company
GENRE—short stories: literary, speculative fiction
SETTING—our world & others
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—poisoned water, algae & fungi & mushrooms, girlhood, creepy kids, summer vacation, legends & lore, tarot cards, mythical realities, family dynamics & relationships, adoption, fairies & changelings, fieldwork & archival research, queer realities, entomology & parasites, fairy- & folk-tales, f/f relationships, climate change, coming-of-age themes, creature love, forest house, childhood trauma, poss. mother with MBP disorder, finding yourself in the books you read, in other people’s stories, and in the heroes you choose
WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
STORIES—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
BONUS ELEMENT/S—Given the particular themes, subjects, and writing style of this book I guess it was inevitable that this would be a *perfect* read for me.
PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“Dorothy has never dreamed the colors of the Viper-King. The inside of its mouth is pink, bodily, more fearsome than if it had been red. Animals in fairy tales have red maws, like shed blood. Wolves that eat up children, and dragons that rise from caverns, these things are red all the way down. They hardly have organs, or stomachs, or throats. Real animals have these things, have intestines and kidneys and fat. Real animals have mouths of infected pink.” —from “The Viper King”
My thoughts:
This is one of the few books that has actually left me just a littleee tingly with jealousy that I didn’t write these stories. 😂 There wasn’t one I didn’t like. Reading each story was like unwrapping a precious, highly-anticipated treasure, trying not to rush the experience so as not to miss a single, exquisite detail. Lots of queer love, lots of body horror, lots of dark dark themes, and the *writing*. This was a five-star read based on the writing style alone. A front-runner for best read of 2023 for me.
I think my favorite story was “Fiddler, Fool Pair” but “Take Only What Belongs to You” was a very close second. The imagery in “Algal Bloom” was excellent and I loved the premise of “The Viper King”. “The Changeling” was the most disturbing of the stories for me and I thought it was really cool how “Is This You?” was told in a second person singular pov. The end of “Fruiting Bodies” was perfect and “Endangered Animals” was subtle and poignant.
I would recommend this book to readers who enjoy particularly dark and modern gothic stories—especially ones that focus on queer themes and feature strong overtones of mythical and supernatural elements.
This book is best read on a dark and stormy night, on a roadtrip, on a whim—anywhere where the liminal spaces of our worlds seem more fluid than usual…
Final note: Kathryn Harlan is a new autobuy author for me. ✌🏻
"’Listen,’ I repeated, and pointed up toward the sky, though we could see nothing there yet. ‘The crows are coming.’ And they were.” — from “Fruiting Bodies”
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
CW // animal death, graphic: adopteephobia, cancer, addiction (gambling), (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)
Further Reading—
- WHAT IS NOT YOURS IS NOT YOURS, by Helen Oyeyemi
- THE WOMAN WHO BORROWED MEMORIES, by Tove Jansson
- SALT SLOW, and OUR WIVES UNDER THE SEA, by Julia Armfield
- DARK TALES, by Shirley Jackson
- HAG: FORGOTTEN FOLKTALES RETOLD, edited by Carolyn Larrington
- HITTING A STRAIGHT LICK WITH A CROOKED STICK, by Zora Neale Hurston
- THE GOOD PEOPLE, by Hannah Kent
- WHITE IS FOR WITCHING, by Helen Oyeyemi
- THE SEED KEEPERS, or OLIGARCHY, by Scarlett Thomas
- IN THE HOUSE IN THE DARK OF THE WOODS, by Laird Hunt
- SHARP OBJECTS, by Gillian Flynn
- EMILY WILDE’S ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF FAERIES, by Heather Fawcett—TBR
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Addiction, Animal death, Cancer, and Child abuse
jessereadsthings's review
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Child abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Body horror, and Eating disorder
Moderate: Animal death, Homophobia, Sexual harassment, and Death
beepsies's review
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
Really not my thing. I liked the way the author wrote — I felt like the prose was really flavorful! But the flavor was one I didn't much care for, and the stories themselves weren’t really to my taste. I found them to be unpleasantly gooey (a matter of preference), and found myself getting annoyed every time one of the protagonists was self conscious of her size.
Not that it’s not a nigh universal experience, or that a sapphic’s relationship to her body is endlessly complicated, or that there isn’t interesting or illuminating or meaningful story to be told about it, but in a bunch of short stories where words are at a premium, I did get tired of the repetition of it.
My favorite story was “Fiddler, Fool Pair.” I was intrigued by the setup and was gripped by the escalation. There was some unpleasant body stuff in it, but it felt fitting to me. I really liked the way it ended, too. I felt like a lot of the stories were very bleak, and I felt like this one was more hopeful and had more positive to say about human connection.
I read this for a book club, and while it wasn't really an enjoyable experience for me, it was interesting to read something that just did not gel with my taste at all.
Not that it’s not a nigh universal experience, or that a sapphic’s relationship to her body is endlessly complicated, or that there isn’t interesting or illuminating or meaningful story to be told about it, but in a bunch of short stories where words are at a premium, I did get tired of the repetition of it.
My favorite story was “Fiddler, Fool Pair.” I was intrigued by the setup and was gripped by the escalation. There was some unpleasant body stuff in it, but it felt fitting to me. I really liked the way it ended, too. I felt like a lot of the stories were very bleak, and I felt like this one was more hopeful and had more positive to say about human connection.
I read this for a book club, and while it wasn't really an enjoyable experience for me, it was interesting to read something that just did not gel with my taste at all.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror and Murder
Moderate: Self harm, Gore, and Medical content
Minor: Child abuse, Pregnancy, Suicide attempt, Kidnapping, Emotional abuse, Blood, Miscarriage, and Infertility
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