Reviews with content warning for Gore - Ağızdaki Kuşlar

This one was confusing for me because there were many aspects that I really enjoyed and many aspects that I didn’t. There were also many aspects that I didn’t understand. That might be because I don’t understand or really know if the Argentinian culture and it’s literature (though I’m very interested in it’s literature now especially after reading Tender is the Flesh which I adored.) Unfortunately I didn’t love this collection. It’s hard to judge a collection as the stories can differ so much so here are some numbers to help you see what my overall thoughts were. I think the Mode rating is a 3 stars. There are 20 stories out of those 20 I rated 19. I couldn’t give one a rating because I just didn’t know what rating fitted it. So out of the 19 I had: one 1 star, four 2 stars, seven 3 stars, five 4 stars and two 5 stars. Give or take a few .5’s that I’ve thrown around.

The main thing that REALLY let down the rating was the inclusion of the f slur (both the 3 letter one and the 6 letter) in stories 5 and 7. These were not needed. They added NOTHING to the story. It is a word I am sensitive to especially the 6 letter word and it did trigger me a bit to see it. That is a word I have bad history with and I don’t respect seeing it without reason and without warning. I have seen no evidence towards her being lgbt either so as far as I’m concerned she has no right to use those words. People, in my opinion, can write narratives different to what they know but within reason and I am highly against people using slurs that they have no right to use with the excuse of literature. You’re still saying a slur and it’s still offensive.

Moving away from that, some stories I really liked and others I found a little boring if I’m honest. A quote from J M Coetzee stated that her word is like “the Grimm brothers” and that she writes “darkly humorous tales”. The daily Mail described this collection as “an eerie blend of the supernatural and the all too real.” The daily Mail I agree with but I wanted MORE. I wasn’t creeped out or spooked at all. I didn’t get any shivers. Some had great atmosphere and there were a few that did border on creepy but were just too short to have much impact. The only exception being stories 14, 16 and 19. But I didn’t like waiting until story 14 out of 20 to get the eeriness I was promised. Many of the stories also just didn’t have a lot going for them in the sense of story, characters, or theme and I feel like even in a short story you need something, anything, to give you a reason to keep reading. I didn’t feel like this collection had a overarching theme or even genre as some stories just felt out of place. Do I regret picking this up? A little bit yes. More because I don’t have a lot of money so it’s sad that it went to something I didn’t love but that’s the gamble of books. Would I recommend this? No. However, I wouldn’t stop anyone from reading this. I would warn them of the slurs obviously but literature, at the end of the day is subjective and apart from what I’ve previously stated I didn’t find anything particularly wrong with this book so others might enjoy it for more than I did. Overall ending feeling as I closed the book was disappointment but not dislike.

Content Warnings

lain_darko's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

kelseyland's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
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

Samanta Schweblin's stories are the creepiest kind of horror, the kind that magnifies and exaggerates the ugliness of humanity. These short stories are strange, surreal and haunting, the kind of thing that sticks with you for a long time after you've read it, for better or worse.

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