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A review by ralovesbooks
So We Can Glow: Stories by Leesa Cross-Smith
4.0
Thank you to Grand Central Publishing for my free copy!
I love short stories, and this collection is unlike any others I can remember. All of the pieces are about women and relationships - all kinds of relationships! Some feel like spoken-word pieces with lists of items or feelings that have a certain rhythm. Others are slim vignettes into a life that you KNOW there's more to the story, but you just get a little slice. This collection really impressed me in the back half, when some of the pieces loop back around to others from the front half. You get a story from another person's perspective, or a side character shows up as a main character later, or it's the same story but earlier in time. I kept flipping back and forth as references dinged in my brain, like, why does this sound familiar? The callbacks made me more invested in the characters and thankful for the time I got to spend with them.
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I wasn't trying to get tan the same way the white girls tried to get tan. How they'd hold their arms up to mine and say I'm almost as dark as you and I wouldn't say anything because everyone knows white people want to be blank and no white person wants to be black. ("Out of the Strong, Something Sweet")
"Men being honest with themselves and truly listening to women... it has the potential to change the world," she says. (Owen's mom, in "Some are Dark, Some are Light, Summer Melts")
And she didn't ask permission before walking down the glossy hallway in her black-tights-feet to his bedroom so she could check out his books. To see who he really was. ("Dark and Sweet and Dirty")
I love short stories, and this collection is unlike any others I can remember. All of the pieces are about women and relationships - all kinds of relationships! Some feel like spoken-word pieces with lists of items or feelings that have a certain rhythm. Others are slim vignettes into a life that you KNOW there's more to the story, but you just get a little slice. This collection really impressed me in the back half, when some of the pieces loop back around to others from the front half. You get a story from another person's perspective, or a side character shows up as a main character later, or it's the same story but earlier in time. I kept flipping back and forth as references dinged in my brain, like, why does this sound familiar? The callbacks made me more invested in the characters and thankful for the time I got to spend with them.
---
I wasn't trying to get tan the same way the white girls tried to get tan. How they'd hold their arms up to mine and say I'm almost as dark as you and I wouldn't say anything because everyone knows white people want to be blank and no white person wants to be black. ("Out of the Strong, Something Sweet")
"Men being honest with themselves and truly listening to women... it has the potential to change the world," she says. (Owen's mom, in "Some are Dark, Some are Light, Summer Melts")
And she didn't ask permission before walking down the glossy hallway in her black-tights-feet to his bedroom so she could check out his books. To see who he really was. ("Dark and Sweet and Dirty")