You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.76 AVERAGE
3.76 AVERAGE
Beautifully written, highly varied, compellingly interwoven. Not every story was perfect, but overall, this was a lovely collection.
I liked a couple of the stories but the majority I found boring.
Loved BOY SNOW BIRD, but for whatever reason just did not click with any of these stories. Found myself just skimming near the end :/
Oyeyemi shoots a marble that hits yours. Hers stops abruptly, but yours continues in its trajectory for just a moment more.
DNF.
I really wanted to like this book of short stories. I read the first one and liked it well enough but the second one I had to start over a couple of times before it finally sunk in. It was just OK.
I started the third story and the premise was interesting - I’ve never read anything from the perspective of a puppet before- but it’s really not drawing me back.
Maybe I’ll come back some time later to these when I don’t have so many I’m more interested in reading.
I really wanted to like this book of short stories. I read the first one and liked it well enough but the second one I had to start over a couple of times before it finally sunk in. It was just OK.
I started the third story and the premise was interesting - I’ve never read anything from the perspective of a puppet before- but it’s really not drawing me back.
Maybe I’ll come back some time later to these when I don’t have so many I’m more interested in reading.
This is a book I keep telling people to read and I can't really put into words why. It was recommended to me because of my love for fairy tales. These stories are definitely fairy tales, but they're also not. They ebb and flow in their own realities that weave the 'real world' and current issues with magic and fantasy. I feel like the best way to describe it is fluid. Oyeyemi's words flow and twist like beautiful rivers.
If you're going to read this book, keep going. While the first few stories were nothing special, by the middle they were really drawing me in. They keep getting better and better - I might even recommend completely skipping the first three.
The last three, on the other hand, are fantastic. All of these stories have an air of magical realism to them, but these three really make that important, instead of just another element forced in and unexplained. While they're shorter than the beginning ones, they feel so much more like a fully developed world and a fully developed plot. The secrets they hide (some eventually revealed, some not) are irresistible.
Those stories made the book worth it. The way they had me think was so different most of the other things that I have read. It pushed my brain in new directions, and I loved it. I wish I had spent more time reading this book, so that I could process that more, but I had to keep going - I just wanted to finish them all.
The last three, on the other hand, are fantastic. All of these stories have an air of magical realism to them, but these three really make that important, instead of just another element forced in and unexplained. While they're shorter than the beginning ones, they feel so much more like a fully developed world and a fully developed plot. The secrets they hide (some eventually revealed, some not) are irresistible.
Those stories made the book worth it. The way they had me think was so different most of the other things that I have read. It pushed my brain in new directions, and I loved it. I wish I had spent more time reading this book, so that I could process that more, but I had to keep going - I just wanted to finish them all.
Super intriguing, but did not finish. The prose is lovely, but I felt like I had to reread every story 3 times to understand it.
A really fun collection of short stories - some connected, some not, all with a world that is not quite real.