A review by flyle
The Wishing Pool and Other Stories by Tananarive Due

3.0

This is my first read by this author. I saw both the author and her book spoken of highly in social media. Things were going good until the last third of the book in all the pandemic + climate change themed stories where all the bad guys were people wearing masks and taking precautions. One line that stuck out to me was when one main character said only zealots still wore masks. I double checked the publication date and sure enough it was in 2023, so all this felt icky. I went back and read a previous short story by the author called "Herd Immunity" from 2014 because it was related to a story in this book. That previous short story only confirmed for me that the main character is a total self centered monster. The author doesn't seem to align with that politically in real life based on her social media so I am confused on what the message is here? I suppose making me hate a character is a hallmark of a great author, and I get there are allusions to historical prejudices around medicine and public health, but it still feels wrong. I don't know if the author has addressed her intentions around this anywhere in an interview or something, but frankly it doesn't sit right with me, especially given the outcry from the disability community around the lack of support and safety measures in 2023.

Editing this review because I found out these stories I disliked were actually all written pre-CoViD and not published in this book until 2023. That makes it slightly better so I moved it up to 3 stars. I would still have liked to seen them re-worked and updated for the context of what the world went through.