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A review by znnys
Slug and Other Stories by Megan Milks
4.0
I really appreciated how weird and visceral these stories were. It's always interesting to identify common threads in an author's work - in these stories, Milks explores identity and love and "twin"ness a lot, transformation and being trans, and the intersection between sex and repulsion.
Absolute favorite was Germ Camp, I loved it and wished it had been longer. It best illustrates the aforementioned sex/repulsion concept. It has this confinement, both physically and sexually, this simultaneous fear and desire for sex, flirting with the precipice of perversion but unable to cross that boundary. I also feel like Milks really effectively portrayed the love and tension between the siblings, as well as the narrator's difficulty in fully grasping their brother's perspective as a disabled person. I know the last story is meant to be a companion piece to Slug but it actually feels more in line with Germ Camp, in the "perverse" desire for something you know may genuinely kill you.
Other ones I found really thought-provoking were Strands, My Father and I Were Bent Groundward, and the titular Slug. I liked the formatting of Kill Margeurite and TWINS, both having kind of this nostalgic video game/Choose-Your-Own-Adventure inspiration, though thematically they were a bit underwhelming.
Trauma-Rama felt in the same vein as Kill Margeurite and TWINS, evoking that kitschy preteen girl nostalgia with underlying seriousness beneath, but I liked it much better than the other two and found it much more impactful and interesting. That one and Germ Camp were, to me, the strongest pieces in the collection.
Some of them just didn't land for me, though, and felt kind of pretentious. And too aware of how "shocking" they were. Wild Animals and Swamp Cycle felt that way to me. I felt like Wild Animals in particular more or less had the same kind of meaning that Slug did but illustrated it less effectively. Others I didn't outright dislike but I felt kind of indifferent to, Like Tomato Heart.
Overall a worthwhile read with some great pieces, though not all of them landed for me.
Absolute favorite was Germ Camp, I loved it and wished it had been longer. It best illustrates the aforementioned sex/repulsion concept. It has this confinement, both physically and sexually, this simultaneous fear and desire for sex, flirting with the precipice of perversion but unable to cross that boundary. I also feel like Milks really effectively portrayed the love and tension between the siblings, as well as the narrator's difficulty in fully grasping their brother's perspective as a disabled person. I know the last story is meant to be a companion piece to Slug but it actually feels more in line with Germ Camp, in the "perverse" desire for something you know may genuinely kill you.
Other ones I found really thought-provoking were Strands, My Father and I Were Bent Groundward, and the titular Slug. I liked the formatting of Kill Margeurite and TWINS, both having kind of this nostalgic video game/Choose-Your-Own-Adventure inspiration, though thematically they were a bit underwhelming.
Trauma-Rama felt in the same vein as Kill Margeurite and TWINS, evoking that kitschy preteen girl nostalgia with underlying seriousness beneath, but I liked it much better than the other two and found it much more impactful and interesting. That one and Germ Camp were, to me, the strongest pieces in the collection.
Some of them just didn't land for me, though, and felt kind of pretentious. And too aware of how "shocking" they were. Wild Animals and Swamp Cycle felt that way to me. I felt like Wild Animals in particular more or less had the same kind of meaning that Slug did but illustrated it less effectively. Others I didn't outright dislike but I felt kind of indifferent to, Like Tomato Heart.
Overall a worthwhile read with some great pieces, though not all of them landed for me.