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A review by khornstein1
No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July
3.0
Miranda, I'm going to give you three stars because some stories in here, while not written in a style that I particularly like (i.e. every single narrator sounds exactly the same, and kind of like a whiny valley girl--sorry but that's my impression!)are really very profound.
"This person" is a story about a kind of afterlife that those of us who wonder what afterlife, if it's anything we can really comprehend from our earthbound position, would be like and if it is really the contemporary Christian version where everyone we've ever known is waiting for us at a kind of picnic. This is the type of vision of afterlife that makes me want to head for the hills or go home and take a bath, like the woman in this story! Do you really want to see your childhood dentist again, even transformed into a heavenly being? And I always envision myself running around making sandwiches for everyone...but I digress.
"Birthmark" deals with a woman who loses the port wine stain from her face and finds herself to be rather than "beautiful, except for the birthmark" as now "except for nothing." Hmm--that really got me thinking.
The problem with Ms. July is that she's gimmicky--rather than flesh out her characters or focus on writing, supernatural/fantasy plot devices abound. And then there are stories which feature sexually abusive situations mostly to shock us...and sorry, but shocking people (and if you've read a lot you're not really that easily shocked)does not constitute good writing, and it's not very "new."
"The Swim Team" though, while clearly fantasy, is just really, really clever. Read selectively. 3 stars!
"This person" is a story about a kind of afterlife that those of us who wonder what afterlife, if it's anything we can really comprehend from our earthbound position, would be like and if it is really the contemporary Christian version where everyone we've ever known is waiting for us at a kind of picnic. This is the type of vision of afterlife that makes me want to head for the hills or go home and take a bath, like the woman in this story! Do you really want to see your childhood dentist again, even transformed into a heavenly being? And I always envision myself running around making sandwiches for everyone...but I digress.
"Birthmark" deals with a woman who loses the port wine stain from her face and finds herself to be rather than "beautiful, except for the birthmark" as now "except for nothing." Hmm--that really got me thinking.
The problem with Ms. July is that she's gimmicky--rather than flesh out her characters or focus on writing, supernatural/fantasy plot devices abound. And then there are stories which feature sexually abusive situations mostly to shock us...and sorry, but shocking people (and if you've read a lot you're not really that easily shocked)does not constitute good writing, and it's not very "new."
"The Swim Team" though, while clearly fantasy, is just really, really clever. Read selectively. 3 stars!