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3.85 AVERAGE
3.85 AVERAGE
Haluun antaa tälle kuusi tähteä. Aivan järisyttävä kokemus, niin hieno, oon nyt hieman hajalla ja yritän kasata itseäni.
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
pretty underwhelming honestly. i think machado is just not for me. felt pretty meh about all the short stories, though inventory was my favorite
dark
funny
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
“You know. That old trope. Writing a story where the female protagonist is utterly batty. It's sort of tiresome and regressive and, well, done"…"don't you think? And the mad lesbian, isn't that a stereotype as well? Do you ever wonder about that?”
i, for one, will never be over queer woman hysteria.
i, for one, will never be over queer woman hysteria.
Wow. This collection of short stories was incredible. Horror stories about how women are treated, seen, manipulated, love, and experience life. They do include a lot of sex, so if that’s a trigger, you might want to skip. But I encourage you to read it regardless because I feel a lot of these stories are important to think about. Here are some more specific opinions about each story:
The Husband Stitch: It’s that old tale about the green ribbon around a woman’s neck and it explores women’s roles in society and idea of consent vs pressure. It’s pretty heartbreaking and told in a beautiful way.
Inventory: Told one sexual encounter at a time, all the while a plague is spreading across the world. I thought this was also fantastic and hints at the (horrible) idea that women who have too much sex are damaging to the world. The apocalypse is in the background, which isn’t a normal horror story.
Mothers: This one is abstract, about two lesbians who have a baby and she unravels.
Especially Heinous: This one is gimmicky, but I loved it! It’s made-up blurbs for each episode of Law & Order: SVU’s episode titles (not made-up) and it creates a story that way. Identity, ghosts, and still has a feeling that rape and assault of women just happens all the time and isn’t terribly shocking anymore. Ugh, this one is really good.
Real Women Have Bodies: A story about women who fade away and it also deals with the idea that this just happens and can’t be fixed. Women who fade still exist in a weird, not there way and it’s terrifying.
Eight Bites: Deals with eating and weight issues and family and is also creepy.
The Resident: A writer goes to an artist’s retreat and weird things happen. This one plays with the concept of memory and paints beautiful pictures so you know exactly where the characters are and their surroundings. This is an epic yarn.
Difficult at Parties: A woman tries to recover a sexual assault by watching porn, but it’s more complex than that. Written somewhat frantically, which adds to the horror.
The Husband Stitch: It’s that old tale about the green ribbon around a woman’s neck and it explores women’s roles in society and idea of consent vs pressure. It’s pretty heartbreaking and told in a beautiful way.
Inventory: Told one sexual encounter at a time, all the while a plague is spreading across the world. I thought this was also fantastic and hints at the (horrible) idea that women who have too much sex are damaging to the world. The apocalypse is in the background, which isn’t a normal horror story.
Mothers: This one is abstract, about two lesbians who have a baby and she unravels.
Especially Heinous: This one is gimmicky, but I loved it! It’s made-up blurbs for each episode of Law & Order: SVU’s episode titles (not made-up) and it creates a story that way. Identity, ghosts, and still has a feeling that rape and assault of women just happens all the time and isn’t terribly shocking anymore. Ugh, this one is really good.
Real Women Have Bodies: A story about women who fade away and it also deals with the idea that this just happens and can’t be fixed. Women who fade still exist in a weird, not there way and it’s terrifying.
Eight Bites: Deals with eating and weight issues and family and is also creepy.
The Resident: A writer goes to an artist’s retreat and weird things happen. This one plays with the concept of memory and paints beautiful pictures so you know exactly where the characters are and their surroundings. This is an epic yarn.
Difficult at Parties: A woman tries to recover a sexual assault by watching porn, but it’s more complex than that. Written somewhat frantically, which adds to the horror.
Too much graphic sexual content. Entire book was sexual content and violence
4.5 stars that I’m rounding up. Despite so much of this being eerie there was something soothing about it for me. The emphasis on women and their relationship to their bodies was so relevant to my current situation (I just had a huge non cancerous tumor removed from my body so I was in the mood for something like this.) I think I will be absorbing this one for a long time.
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Well, this collection of stories was quite haunting and strange. Some struck me as very interesting, others I had to struggle through, but on the whole it was an arrangement of unique tales about women that offer a dark perspective.
These stories encompass all sorts of women in all kinds of relationships. There is a lot of lesbian and bisexual tones that show throughout each story in their own way. But what resonates the most is the mind of the women in these stories. They are portrayed as loving, kind, terrified, crazy, and angry. They are what all women are and are yet not often portrayed as, all in the backdrop of frightening and horror stories that twist the mind. I absolutely enjoyed the first two stories the most. The girl with the green ribbon was one of my favorite ghost stories growing up and to see it portrayed in a different light was a great way to show familiarity and start this series of stories off. I enjoyed the second story too as a woman discusses her different partners in her life with the backdrop of an viral apocalypse. It was a memoir without the apocalypse being the forefront which I found to be an interesting perspective. I started to lose interest after the Law and Order: SVU summary sequence. It was too long and I didn't see much of a point to it as it was hard to follow. As I continued to read, I started finding it harder to connect with the characters in the same way I was able to in the first two stories. The one where the women begin to disappear did strike my interest, as it showed a great undertone of how women were still rising up even when they disappeared. Beyond this though, I started to lose energy toward it all after a while. All of these stories have significance, it is just a matter of which stories hold significance for the reader. I was drawn to a few, which is more than I can say when it comes to short stories I've read before where I haven't liked any of them. So, while I didn't enjoy all of this collection, there were enough stories that left a lasting memory.
The haunting nature of these stories is just one element. I believe the openness this author presents the lives in these stories, with their sexuality, their relationships, and their internal horrors is what makes these stories unique.
These stories encompass all sorts of women in all kinds of relationships. There is a lot of lesbian and bisexual tones that show throughout each story in their own way. But what resonates the most is the mind of the women in these stories. They are portrayed as loving, kind, terrified, crazy, and angry. They are what all women are and are yet not often portrayed as, all in the backdrop of frightening and horror stories that twist the mind. I absolutely enjoyed the first two stories the most. The girl with the green ribbon was one of my favorite ghost stories growing up and to see it portrayed in a different light was a great way to show familiarity and start this series of stories off. I enjoyed the second story too as a woman discusses her different partners in her life with the backdrop of an viral apocalypse. It was a memoir without the apocalypse being the forefront which I found to be an interesting perspective. I started to lose interest after the Law and Order: SVU summary sequence. It was too long and I didn't see much of a point to it as it was hard to follow. As I continued to read, I started finding it harder to connect with the characters in the same way I was able to in the first two stories. The one where the women begin to disappear did strike my interest, as it showed a great undertone of how women were still rising up even when they disappeared. Beyond this though, I started to lose energy toward it all after a while. All of these stories have significance, it is just a matter of which stories hold significance for the reader. I was drawn to a few, which is more than I can say when it comes to short stories I've read before where I haven't liked any of them. So, while I didn't enjoy all of this collection, there were enough stories that left a lasting memory.
The haunting nature of these stories is just one element. I believe the openness this author presents the lives in these stories, with their sexuality, their relationships, and their internal horrors is what makes these stories unique.
challenging
dark
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I don't know what the heck I just read but I found it enjoyable. I feel like this one is a bit of a thinker and things might start to fall into place over time? I skipped most of the Low and Order SVU story because it just went on and on and I didn't see the point of reading it all - I have never even watched the show so I had no idea who she was on about.