Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

You Have Never Been Here: New and Selected Stories by Mary Rickert

1 review

mdpenguin's review

Go to review page

dark emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This is another collection where I think that I'd have liked the stories more if I came across them one at a time rather than all together. It wasn't that they didn't fit into a collection together so much as bouncing from story to story about child death and/or abuse was just a bit much for me. The writing is generally good but I came away from a lot of the stories feeling like they either needed to be a bit less out there or a bit more, like the author couldn't quite settle on the right level of surreality. There was also frequently an ironic dryness that I felt sometimes didn't serve the stories well, but was great in those stories where it did work. And some of the stories felt a little half-baked, like the endings or the oddness were there to deal with the fact that the author didn't know where to go with the story. But, overall, I'd say that most of the stories were reasonably well conceived, well told, and worth reading. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings
More...