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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
madsreb's review against another edition
3.0
‘Singing my Sister Down’ is one of the best stories I’ve ever read.
smashy's review against another edition
4.0
I don't recall having read any anthologies before. I have tried out some random short stories but have not really enjoyed them. I picked this book up at the Caboolture Bookfest as I had Margo Lanagan marked as an Australian author I wanted to try out. I am SO GLAD I found/bought this & SO GLAD this is the first book of collected short stories I have read.
Such dark, sad, creepy tales that are riddled with anxiety of "what's". What happened? What is happening? What is going to happen?
I honestly liked all of the beautiful, emotionally engaging stories, this is definitely a favourite. And will be going on my to be re-read shelf.
Such dark, sad, creepy tales that are riddled with anxiety of "what's". What happened? What is happening? What is going to happen?
I honestly liked all of the beautiful, emotionally engaging stories, this is definitely a favourite. And will be going on my to be re-read shelf.
madelinepuckett's review against another edition
3.0
A book of fantastical short stories written by Australian author Margo Lanagan.
Lanagan gives nothing to the reader; we're pulled into each world she creates and have to figure out the rules as we go. As I jumped from story to story, this disjointed my attention span at times - some stories drew me in more quickly than others - as each tale required a shift and fresh eyes. But once you are pulled in, you don't want to leave.
At times I felt I was inside another person's dream or imagination landscape, especially in Wooden Bride and Perpetual Light.
Other tales are rich with emotive tension, like Singing My Sister Down and House of the Many.
For anyone into fantasy, surrealism, or just looking for something a bit different, I can recommend this short story collection.
Lanagan gives nothing to the reader; we're pulled into each world she creates and have to figure out the rules as we go. As I jumped from story to story, this disjointed my attention span at times - some stories drew me in more quickly than others - as each tale required a shift and fresh eyes. But once you are pulled in, you don't want to leave.
At times I felt I was inside another person's dream or imagination landscape, especially in Wooden Bride and Perpetual Light.
Other tales are rich with emotive tension, like Singing My Sister Down and House of the Many.
For anyone into fantasy, surrealism, or just looking for something a bit different, I can recommend this short story collection.
suzanne_earley's review
4.0
This was such a strange little collection of short stories. All of them started right off in the midst of strange locations or strange cultures, and you had to just figure things out as you went along. And by the time you did, the strange, disturbing little story was over. Everything was very dark and mysterious, and I was sure if I was supposed to like or loathe the protagonists. A little of both. The theme was about tapping into those dark places that everyone has, that you don't want to quite admit to harboring inside you.
Short stories are interesting, because it seems like authors can sometimes play more with really strange stuff -- ideas that would be hard to maintain for an entire novel (in one, the protagonist is an elephant, communicating telepathically with his fellow elephants as they take off in search of their lost keeper). The imagination on display in all of these stories is what fascinates me, and makes me despair, yet again, for seeming to have so little imagination of my own to come up with something unique.
Lanagan is an Australian author, and the other-ness of the little bits of worlds she has created in these short stories is a wonderful change of pace.
Her book, Tender Morsels shows up in the 2009 list of honor books, and I'm looking forward to that, as well.
Short stories are interesting, because it seems like authors can sometimes play more with really strange stuff -- ideas that would be hard to maintain for an entire novel (in one, the protagonist is an elephant, communicating telepathically with his fellow elephants as they take off in search of their lost keeper). The imagination on display in all of these stories is what fascinates me, and makes me despair, yet again, for seeming to have so little imagination of my own to come up with something unique.
Lanagan is an Australian author, and the other-ness of the little bits of worlds she has created in these short stories is a wonderful change of pace.
Her book, Tender Morsels shows up in the 2009 list of honor books, and I'm looking forward to that, as well.
lisawreading's review against another edition
4.0
Wow, what a strange collection of stories. Margo Lanagan has a unique voice, creating rough-hewn characters with their own distinctive dialects, in worlds foreign yet vaguely familiar. The stories in Black Juice cover a bizarre range of subjects, including an assassination spree aimed at clowns and a family whose obligation it is to physically change the seasons. My favorite of all -- and the one that will stay with me for a long time -- is "Singing My Sister Down", which simply has to be read, even if you choose to skip the rest of the book. Overall, I'd say Black Juice is weird, often creepy, and really quite good.
stalbergwrites's review against another edition
(I do not do star ratings anymore, as I don't think they are a fair assessment to literature.)
I wish I could rate each individual short story, because Sweet Pippit was an absolute favorite (like Watership Down but with elephants!). I also loved Singing My Sister Down and Red Nose Day. The other stories were good too, though sometimes hard to follow. Each short story has enough that it could have been expanded into a book, so there was a lot to digest. I recommend not reading it all at once since the stories are heavy and often need to be read twice to fully comprehend.
I wish I could rate each individual short story, because Sweet Pippit was an absolute favorite (like Watership Down but with elephants!). I also loved Singing My Sister Down and Red Nose Day. The other stories were good too, though sometimes hard to follow. Each short story has enough that it could have been expanded into a book, so there was a lot to digest. I recommend not reading it all at once since the stories are heavy and often need to be read twice to fully comprehend.
teresatumminello's review
3.0
I picked up this collection from the library, because I loved Lanagan's [b:Tender Morsels|2662169|Tender Morsels|Margo Lanagan|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1389763545s/2662169.jpg|2687395], a novel I know I would've reread if I were a teenager.
The reader of these stories is plopped, matter-of-fact-ly, into Lanagan's imaginative worlds, places that are not our own but in some ways are familiar. For example, we may not encounter blobby, destructive monsters made from beetles in a rural village set in some kind of past (in the story "Yowlinin"), but we all know the pangs of unrequited love.
The first story ("Singing My Sister Down") has a "The Lottery"-by-Shirley-Jackson (an author I loved as a young teen) feel to it, though it certainly stands on its own merits. The most powerful story, "Red Nose Day" -- about clowns who are the upper-class in a city with a vaguely medieval feel to it (with one glaring modern exception) -- is creepy but with strong meaning. "Perpetual Light" sets us in a near-future when the young people all have allergies, while the 'olden-days' persons feel like they still have some old immunities left over, but there is still the need for daughters to separate from their mothers no matter their age.
Each story is its own little world, though each has a novelistic feel, reaching out into a larger world that Lanagan has us believing exists or existed or will existed, one day, somewhere.
The reader of these stories is plopped, matter-of-fact-ly, into Lanagan's imaginative worlds, places that are not our own but in some ways are familiar. For example, we may not encounter blobby, destructive monsters made from beetles in a rural village set in some kind of past (in the story "Yowlinin"), but we all know the pangs of unrequited love.
The first story ("Singing My Sister Down") has a "The Lottery"-by-Shirley-Jackson (an author I loved as a young teen) feel to it, though it certainly stands on its own merits. The most powerful story, "Red Nose Day" -- about clowns who are the upper-class in a city with a vaguely medieval feel to it (with one glaring modern exception) -- is creepy but with strong meaning. "Perpetual Light" sets us in a near-future when the young people all have allergies, while the 'olden-days' persons feel like they still have some old immunities left over, but there is still the need for daughters to separate from their mothers no matter their age.
Each story is its own little world, though each has a novelistic feel, reaching out into a larger world that Lanagan has us believing exists or existed or will existed, one day, somewhere.
calixita's review against another edition
4.0
Wow. Many good short stories draw you in and immerse you in moments. Lanagan creates entire worlds and cultures and allows you to live in them fully within the space of several pages.
roseleaf24's review
5.0
Black Juice is a collection of short stories. They are all of excellent quality, though some resonated with me more than others, including the oft-anthologized "Singing My Sister Down," which was easily my favorite. They are all gripping and fully realized. I read this quickly, but I had to take breaks in between some of the stories. Lanagan writes somewhere between fantasy and science fiction, and each of these stories is set in a different world. I love her work as short stories; I have read a novel, and it was a bit intense for me, but these bites of intensity were just perfect.
geegee_74's review against another edition
2.0
Not really my thing as the worlds took so long to become used to that I didn't feel most of them fitted a short story format, but that's just me - I prefer novels usually. However I did like the first story in the collection 'Singing my sister down' and 'yowlinin' was good too although I would have liked it to be expanded a little more personally.