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halligomez's review
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
twilliamson's review
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil is a collection of fiction that transcends the boundaries of common conventions to explore the craft, meaning, and importance of storytelling in human life. The collection of stories, loosely connected by a frame narrative about a writer meeting the Devil one night in a bar, is at times funny, at times heartbreaking, at times frustrating, and at all times evolutionary to how we conceive of the place and purpose of short fiction.
The thing I love most about this collection is its metaliterary intentions. The book isn't any collection of modern fiction, it's oftentimes about the very creation of short fiction. Its metaliterary awareness allows it to speak on various symbolic levels at once--as stories about individual women living complicated lives, as stories about the impact of memory or experience on the shape of our lives, or even as stories about the very act of meaning-making through story. Lima doesn't ever seem to work in just one symbolic code, instead constantly code-switching through symbolic resonances to flesh out not just definite (and indefinite) feelings about the world around us but also art's place in human life as reaction to and metabolization of (sometimes) difficult feelings and situations brought about by our interaction with the rest of society.
Lima's art becomes human politics, not just about elections and economic pressures, but about the relationships shared between people and relationships developed inwardly toward the self. These stories and their interstices become about our very ability to navigate life as human beings.
I can't think of a book that made me stop and question my own relationship to art more than this collection--and as a reader, reviewer, and podcaster, I interrogate art and my relationship to it constantly. But that's the magic of what Lima is doing with this collection: questioning what we need from art and its power or its powerlessness to provide for those needs.
To sum it up as a blurb: Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil is philosophy masquerading as short story, unashamed of exposing its beating heart and thinking mind to the world. It is a colossal undertaking, with ideas to digest for years after reading. I can't recommend it more highly.
The thing I love most about this collection is its metaliterary intentions. The book isn't any collection of modern fiction, it's oftentimes about the very creation of short fiction. Its metaliterary awareness allows it to speak on various symbolic levels at once--as stories about individual women living complicated lives, as stories about the impact of memory or experience on the shape of our lives, or even as stories about the very act of meaning-making through story. Lima doesn't ever seem to work in just one symbolic code, instead constantly code-switching through symbolic resonances to flesh out not just definite (and indefinite) feelings about the world around us but also art's place in human life as reaction to and metabolization of (sometimes) difficult feelings and situations brought about by our interaction with the rest of society.
Lima's art becomes human politics, not just about elections and economic pressures, but about the relationships shared between people and relationships developed inwardly toward the self. These stories and their interstices become about our very ability to navigate life as human beings.
I can't think of a book that made me stop and question my own relationship to art more than this collection--and as a reader, reviewer, and podcaster, I interrogate art and my relationship to it constantly. But that's the magic of what Lima is doing with this collection: questioning what we need from art and its power or its powerlessness to provide for those needs.
To sum it up as a blurb: Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil is philosophy masquerading as short story, unashamed of exposing its beating heart and thinking mind to the world. It is a colossal undertaking, with ideas to digest for years after reading. I can't recommend it more highly.
therearenobadbooks's review
dark
informative
medium-paced
4.0
I am going to focus on the things that made me hold this book close to my heart. One of the stories shows us the relationship of a daughter that decided to leave her country for a chance of happiness in the USA and her relationship with her family on the other side of zoom, the ones who wants us to be happy but keep punish us for our choices. That short story alone will make me keep this book close. The portuguese words used (thank you, so good to see a bit from home), the idiomatic expressions, the same themes are so relatable, and I thank the author for writing that short story/chapter. Overall, the stories are strong, and they will not be forgotten soon. The methaphor or allegory or surrealism or magic realism... make these a great read and later a great reread. Thank you publisher for the arc
swhit's review
funny
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
Hooked from page one - the devil, misunderstood and searching for his soul through stories, meets a writer. The stories she crafts for him are fun and inventive, and we are all rewarded with her work.
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