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A review by theknightswhosaybook
Hath No Fury by Melanie R. Meadors, J.M. Martin
3.0
*I received an advance reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*
This rating is the average of all the ratings I assigned for the individual stories (and those ratings varied widely. I had some of each star ranking, from one to five, with most being about 3).
A few notes to begin with:
The blurb notes that the anthology contains "approximately 20 meaningful stories". There are actually thirty pieces here, and they include short biographies of historical women, creative nonfiction, and scifi/fantasy short stories. I didn't realize that going in, so I was caught off guard to suddenly be reading basically an except from a textbook about Harriet Tubman when I thought this was a fiction anthology.
I wouldn't have minded these nonfiction bits so much, once I got used to them, except that the biographies tended to be, well, boring. They weren't written to be detailed, so if you already know about these women (and I had read about most of them before, in more detail) they don't offer anything new. They also weren't written to tell their histories in entertaining ways; they were simply dry. Again, they might offer more interest to a reader who hadn't studied any of these women before, but I didn't find them interesting.
The creative nonfiction pieces were more promising, and I did enjoy some of them.
I won't review each short story individually here — just check my status updates on the book for the thoughts I left as I finished each one. As an overall review, I will say that they varied widely in quality. Some were original and well-written, others felt like something I'd read plenty of times before, and still others were wildly creative but written with no skill or explanation for anything (*cough* shapeshifting half-snake dragon-riding Cleopatra *cough*). Maybe it was just that I was reading it as an ebook (not my favorite book form), but the book seemed to crawl by at a snail's pace. If I were in the editor's place, I would have severely cut the book down. Plenty of these stories deserved to be weeded out.
The book has strongish bent toward diversity and representation, which it should as a self-proclaimed feminist anthology, but I probably wouldn't read it specifically seeking representation. For example, while there were a few stories about gay women, I can't think of a single one that ended with both of those women alive (while plenty of male-female couples survived intact to the ends of their stories).
Rather than end on a negative note, I'll pick out my favorite pieces here so everyone can bask in their glory.
Riding Ever Southward, in the Company of Bees by Seanan McGuire: in a dystopia where bees are all but extinct, guarded caravans of the last surviving hives cross the country to sell pollination for a profit.
A Wasteland of My God's Own Making by Bradley P. Beaulieu: a gifted warrior is tortured by the hunger of a god trapped inside her, punishment for a childhood mistake.
She Keeps Crawling Back by Delilah S. Dawson: a young woman arrives in a New York City ravaged by giant crocodiles and even huger killer robots and befriends a trainer with a haunted past — but neither women is exactly as they seem.
The Unlikely Turncoat by Michael R. Underwood: a genre-hopping secret agent must prevent a tear in the very fabric of the universe by thwarting a betrayal in Cold War-era Copenhagen.
This Is Not Another "Why Representation Is Important" Essay by Monica Valentinelli: the only creative nonfiction piece to make it onto my favorites list, and a good start for explaining the movement for diverse books to people who havn't thought about it much
This rating is the average of all the ratings I assigned for the individual stories (and those ratings varied widely. I had some of each star ranking, from one to five, with most being about 3).
A few notes to begin with:
The blurb notes that the anthology contains "approximately 20 meaningful stories". There are actually thirty pieces here, and they include short biographies of historical women, creative nonfiction, and scifi/fantasy short stories. I didn't realize that going in, so I was caught off guard to suddenly be reading basically an except from a textbook about Harriet Tubman when I thought this was a fiction anthology.
I wouldn't have minded these nonfiction bits so much, once I got used to them, except that the biographies tended to be, well, boring. They weren't written to be detailed, so if you already know about these women (and I had read about most of them before, in more detail) they don't offer anything new. They also weren't written to tell their histories in entertaining ways; they were simply dry. Again, they might offer more interest to a reader who hadn't studied any of these women before, but I didn't find them interesting.
The creative nonfiction pieces were more promising, and I did enjoy some of them.
I won't review each short story individually here — just check my status updates on the book for the thoughts I left as I finished each one. As an overall review, I will say that they varied widely in quality. Some were original and well-written, others felt like something I'd read plenty of times before, and still others were wildly creative but written with no skill or explanation for anything (*cough* shapeshifting half-snake dragon-riding Cleopatra *cough*). Maybe it was just that I was reading it as an ebook (not my favorite book form), but the book seemed to crawl by at a snail's pace. If I were in the editor's place, I would have severely cut the book down. Plenty of these stories deserved to be weeded out.
The book has strongish bent toward diversity and representation, which it should as a self-proclaimed feminist anthology, but I probably wouldn't read it specifically seeking representation. For example, while there were a few stories about gay women, I can't think of a single one that ended with both of those women alive (while plenty of male-female couples survived intact to the ends of their stories).
Rather than end on a negative note, I'll pick out my favorite pieces here so everyone can bask in their glory.
Riding Ever Southward, in the Company of Bees by Seanan McGuire: in a dystopia where bees are all but extinct, guarded caravans of the last surviving hives cross the country to sell pollination for a profit.
A Wasteland of My God's Own Making by Bradley P. Beaulieu: a gifted warrior is tortured by the hunger of a god trapped inside her, punishment for a childhood mistake.
She Keeps Crawling Back by Delilah S. Dawson: a young woman arrives in a New York City ravaged by giant crocodiles and even huger killer robots and befriends a trainer with a haunted past — but neither women is exactly as they seem.
The Unlikely Turncoat by Michael R. Underwood: a genre-hopping secret agent must prevent a tear in the very fabric of the universe by thwarting a betrayal in Cold War-era Copenhagen.
This Is Not Another "Why Representation Is Important" Essay by Monica Valentinelli: the only creative nonfiction piece to make it onto my favorites list, and a good start for explaining the movement for diverse books to people who havn't thought about it much