Scan barcode
A review by davykent
Blood Is Another Word for Hunger by Rivers Solomon
2.0
This is a difficult review to write because I'm of two minds about Blood Is Another Word for Hunger. I settled on a compromise of two stars, because one mind says one star and the other says three.
I find short stories difficult to really enjoy, so me not liking this one isn't a great shock. Where Blood differs is that I feel it actually has the potential to be a full-length novel. Its shortness is a flaw here. Normally, I can do without a short story's message regardless of length, but this book would have translated really well to becoming a novel. This is where my edge towards three stars comes in, because I have to give credit to the premise. I liked the bones of this. It would have been a great slow-burn story about abuse, revenge, and recovery.
But, on the flip side, it's really short. This works against it, especially because it has a problem with wordiness. It's too short yet it spends too much time wasting words... all the while neglecting to mention essential components to the story and environment. Very little information is offered to the reader, instead making you assume details and hope you're right. I tend to find that short stories rely on abstractness and aestheticism, and Blood Is Another Word for Hunger plays right into that. Personally, I don't like it, especially when I can see the potential beneath it all.
In its current form, I wouldn't recommend this. However, were it made into a 60k-word story... That could be very interesting indeed.
I find short stories difficult to really enjoy, so me not liking this one isn't a great shock. Where Blood differs is that I feel it actually has the potential to be a full-length novel. Its shortness is a flaw here. Normally, I can do without a short story's message regardless of length, but this book would have translated really well to becoming a novel. This is where my edge towards three stars comes in, because I have to give credit to the premise. I liked the bones of this. It would have been a great slow-burn story about abuse, revenge, and recovery.
But, on the flip side, it's really short. This works against it, especially because it has a problem with wordiness. It's too short yet it spends too much time wasting words... all the while neglecting to mention essential components to the story and environment. Very little information is offered to the reader, instead making you assume details and hope you're right. I tend to find that short stories rely on abstractness and aestheticism, and Blood Is Another Word for Hunger plays right into that. Personally, I don't like it, especially when I can see the potential beneath it all.
In its current form, I wouldn't recommend this. However, were it made into a 60k-word story... That could be very interesting indeed.