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3.76 AVERAGE
3.76 AVERAGE
Book Riot Read Harder Challenge 2017: Read a collection of stories by a woman. Six stars! My final book of the 2017 Read Harder Challenge has ended up being one of my favorite reads ever, with Helen Oyeyemi officially joining Margo Lanagan in Favorite Author status. What Oyeyemi does here, using stories within stories, recurring characters, echoes from fairy tales, and slips from reality (or are they?), is enough to make me feel like my brain actually changed while reading. As with Margo Lanagan, I sometimes wondered, "Is this a little dark for me?" yet I could not, could not look away. This was also a humbling reading experience as it showed me how frequently I built characters in my head to be white and straight, even though few of these characters are either. Some of them aren't even human. "Gloriously unsettling," indeed. Time to look up more of this author's books.
Favorite quotes:
"The white walls and window frames wound their patterns around her with the adamant geometry of a seashell."
"And no matter how many times the girl offered her hand, her mother refused it. It was the usual struggle between one who loves by accepting burdens and one who loves by refusing to be one."
"Honoring delicacy over full disclosure only comes back to haunt you in the end."
Favorite quotes:
"The white walls and window frames wound their patterns around her with the adamant geometry of a seashell."
"And no matter how many times the girl offered her hand, her mother refused it. It was the usual struggle between one who loves by accepting burdens and one who loves by refusing to be one."
"Honoring delicacy over full disclosure only comes back to haunt you in the end."
Some of the stories really grabbed me and others I couldn’t finish. There didn’t seem to be an in-between.
Nine short stories. Oyeyemi's voice and style is well-suited to short fiction; these stories are playful, whimsical, absurdist, magical--an amorphous, strange magic but the characters take for granted but still find profound. Many stories are big concept (a memory device à la The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; an autocratic dystopia), but perhaps because of the distinctive voice they still feel samey. The overlapping cast contributes to this without providing much value--characters are too numerous and indistinct to be memorable when they make cameos. It's the nested narratives which succeed: stories within stories which play well with the tone and the magical realism. "Books and Roses," a queer, engaging fantasy of manners, is the only story I love; "Is Your Blood As Red As This" makes a valiant effort, but is overlong and overambitious, and "Dornička and the St. Martin's Day Goose" has visceral fairytale imagery but an abrupt end. Yet neither are there any failures; this is a solidly enjoyable collection. It feels accomplished, and exhibits Oyeyemi's themes and skills: successful in all its pieces if not greater than the sum of its parts.
I would have to agree with most of the reviewers that stated the first story was the best and most captivating. While it was fun to play "spot the character repeat" in stories across the book, I kept feeling like there was more to the story that got cut short in each story. It left me wanting more and feeling disappointed.
Sorry, life is too short to keep reading a muddled, boring, and confusing book. Next!
This book did not grab me at first and I almost quit on it halfway through. I'm really glad I didn't quit. I need to re-read a couple of the stories because I felt like some of it went over my head, but if you like unsettling, creepy stories this collection is for you. I love how the main characters in some stories pop up again in others, and I love the tales within tales. Definitely fantastical storytelling set in modern times.
Some of the short stories are really intriguing, others are too vague to be anything but baffling to me
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