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A review by storiesandcoffee
So We Can Glow: Stories by Leesa Cross-Smith
4.0
Big thanks to Grand Central Publishing for the gifted book. All opinions are my own.
I can’t think of a better book to read during Women’s History month than So We Can Glow. This collection of short stories celebrates women in all stages of life, reminding us of our first love, first loss, first heartbreak, first spark of desire.
Leesa Cross-Smith writes beautiful prose, sensual and poetic in the way she describes life in the south, the lives of bored housewives, the lives of struggling mothers. You can practically taste the cherry-flavored lipgloss worn by her teenage characters. You can practically smell the beer-drenched breath of the hardened men that bring pleasure and pain to their women. You can practically picture the summer days of your youth as a hot, sticky, pink-colored time when life was as good as it was ever going to get.
So We Can Glow is an anthology that discusses all the ways women need to be set free. All the ways women need to come into their own, accept their own sexuality and desires, and admit what they really want in order to let their own light shine—in order to glow. Some of the stories were a bit too short, but I was able to really connect with the longer ones, especially the stories that were revisited later on in the book. (Here are a few of my favorites: Chateau Marmont, Champagne, Chanel, Some are Dark, Some are Light, Summer Melts, Get Rowdy and And Down We Go!)
For me, So We Can Glow felt like a conversation with Taylor Swift, Carrie Bradshaw, and Elizabeth Taylor. It was like openly discussing all the secrets you’ve always kept hidden in the walls of your mind because you were afraid of facing judgment if they were ever to be set free. So We Can Glow is an honest exploration of the fears and longing women feel but don’t always feel comfortable vocalizing.
I can’t think of a better book to read during Women’s History month than So We Can Glow. This collection of short stories celebrates women in all stages of life, reminding us of our first love, first loss, first heartbreak, first spark of desire.
Leesa Cross-Smith writes beautiful prose, sensual and poetic in the way she describes life in the south, the lives of bored housewives, the lives of struggling mothers. You can practically taste the cherry-flavored lipgloss worn by her teenage characters. You can practically smell the beer-drenched breath of the hardened men that bring pleasure and pain to their women. You can practically picture the summer days of your youth as a hot, sticky, pink-colored time when life was as good as it was ever going to get.
So We Can Glow is an anthology that discusses all the ways women need to be set free. All the ways women need to come into their own, accept their own sexuality and desires, and admit what they really want in order to let their own light shine—in order to glow. Some of the stories were a bit too short, but I was able to really connect with the longer ones, especially the stories that were revisited later on in the book. (Here are a few of my favorites: Chateau Marmont, Champagne, Chanel, Some are Dark, Some are Light, Summer Melts, Get Rowdy and And Down We Go!)
For me, So We Can Glow felt like a conversation with Taylor Swift, Carrie Bradshaw, and Elizabeth Taylor. It was like openly discussing all the secrets you’ve always kept hidden in the walls of your mind because you were afraid of facing judgment if they were ever to be set free. So We Can Glow is an honest exploration of the fears and longing women feel but don’t always feel comfortable vocalizing.