Reviews

Antarctica by Claire Keegan

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eseodora's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

lessidisa's review against another edition

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2.0

I will learn fifteen types of wind and know the weight of tomorrow's rain by the rustle in the sycamores.

Livre pour finir en dépression. Je l'aurais DNF mais comme ce sont des nouvelles j'ai quand même réussi à aller au bout, mais clairement ce livre était une perte de mon temps. Le style est intéressant mais généralement les nouvelles n'ont pas de chute, où bien elle ne permet pas d'établir une conclusion. Erreur 404. Ce livre rappelle la bizarrerie des histoires de Shirley Jackson.

Her telling me the way my father's hands bruised her for fifteen years, the difference between loving and liking somebody. How she didn't like me any more than him because I had the same cruel eyes.

Once, after the headmaster hit Betty, her nose would not stop bleeding and he sent her out to the stream to wash her face, but she ran home across the fields and told her mother, who walked her back up to school, into the classroom, and told the headmaster that if he laid so much as another finger on her girls, he'd get a worse death than Billy the Buttermaker (who had been savagely murdered down south a few days back).

evawilson's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective medium-paced

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

3.75

rubymagee's review

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adventurous dark funny reflective sad fast-paced

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

paralove's review

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emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

4.0

alisonburnis's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

Finally, Claire Keegan’s debut collection of short stories is in North America! The titular story, Antarctica, is also in the collection So Late in the Day, so it starts off on a familiar note, but then delves into other stories. I was very interested in seeing how these early stories were different from Keegan’s later work, and generally, her style has evolved to be a bit more refined, but the strong bones are there and already firm.

Keegan’s writing is spare and subtle but her stories are very rich. There was more experimentation with style and setting in these ones - maybe not always totally hitting the mark, but taking risks is nice to see. I was very happy with this, Keegan is a great short story writer.