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squid_vicious 's review for:
Apex Magazine Issue 105, February 2018
by Jason Sizemore
“Books need to be read quite as much as we need to read them.”
This is one of those perfect short stories: one more word, and it would have been too much. The pleasure of reading it has to be furtive, a stolen quarter of an hour, hiding the screen of your smartphone from colleagues so they can’t see what you are doing instead of working. If they are the book and library-loving type, they’d forgive you.
I very strongly believe books can save people, can change them, can give them the tools they need to live better lives. A story like “A Witch’s Guide to Escape” encapsulates that idea and brings it to life in a handful of pages, where a very special librarian helps a lonely child find the book he needs the most.
I like to think that books really do have a life of their own, that they enjoy being in our hands just as much as we like to hold them, and sniff them and cry into them. So this lovely, opinionated unnamed narrator had me on her side instantly.
I think missed my calling : I should have been a librarian witch. Few things make me happier than to find a loving home for good books. I love browsing a messy used bookstore, find a weird thing and think to myself: “Oh, Jason/Erika/Amanda would love this!” and taking it home, as if I was sneaking a priceless treasure in my old tote bag. I push books on my nephews as if they were life-saving tools, which, you know, they are! I can’t be there to read with them, sadly, but I’m counting on those books to keep an eye on the boys for me.
I can’t give a story like this anything less than 5 stars. Ms. Harrow, I hope you get all the awards! I’m going home to sniff my books now…
https://www.apex-magazine.com/a-witchs-guide-to-escape-a-practical-compendium-of-portal-fantasies/
This is one of those perfect short stories: one more word, and it would have been too much. The pleasure of reading it has to be furtive, a stolen quarter of an hour, hiding the screen of your smartphone from colleagues so they can’t see what you are doing instead of working. If they are the book and library-loving type, they’d forgive you.
I very strongly believe books can save people, can change them, can give them the tools they need to live better lives. A story like “A Witch’s Guide to Escape” encapsulates that idea and brings it to life in a handful of pages, where a very special librarian helps a lonely child find the book he needs the most.
I like to think that books really do have a life of their own, that they enjoy being in our hands just as much as we like to hold them, and sniff them and cry into them. So this lovely, opinionated unnamed narrator had me on her side instantly.
I think missed my calling : I should have been a librarian witch. Few things make me happier than to find a loving home for good books. I love browsing a messy used bookstore, find a weird thing and think to myself: “Oh, Jason/Erika/Amanda would love this!” and taking it home, as if I was sneaking a priceless treasure in my old tote bag. I push books on my nephews as if they were life-saving tools, which, you know, they are! I can’t be there to read with them, sadly, but I’m counting on those books to keep an eye on the boys for me.
I can’t give a story like this anything less than 5 stars. Ms. Harrow, I hope you get all the awards! I’m going home to sniff my books now…
https://www.apex-magazine.com/a-witchs-guide-to-escape-a-practical-compendium-of-portal-fantasies/