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A review by themaddiest
Blueprints for Building Better Girls: Fiction by Elissa Schappell
3.0
Schappell’s collection of short stories presents the lives of females: girls and women who are aching to tell their experiences. These uniquely funny, observant, sometimes heartbreaking stories are the ones that are largely secret. Girls being shaped into women can be found here, and it’s a unique experience.
The eight stories collected in Schappell’s book are remarkable not only because Schappell is a good writer who gets in close to her characters but also because she writes tough, smart characters who connect with the reader during moments of revelation. There is not only a great sense of care taken with each of the characters, but a great deal of detail given to the characters and the stories they are telling. These stories are intelligent, unflinchingly honest, and contain an uncanny ability to observe the dichotomy of toughness and vulnerability present in women’s lives.
The stories in this collection interconnect with one another. In the first story, “Monsters of the Deep,” a young girl struggles with being labeled the town tramp. Readers revisit her in the last story, “I’m Only Going to Tell You This Once,” as she talks to her teenage son and tries to reconcile her own past. In “The Joy of Cooking,” Emily, a recovering anorexic, has a prolonged phone conversation with her mother that explores the complexity of their relationship (this one hit me particularly hard). The women in Schappell’s stories go in and out of each other’s lives and provide a richness to her stories that is memorable and satisfying.
These stories contain characters that will leave lasting impressions on readers. The examination of female identity pervades these stories but never feels overpowering or too didactic. Fans of smart short stories should look no farther: this collection embodies that completely.
The collection is out now.
Blueprints for Building Better Girls by Elissa Schappell. Simon & Shuster: 2011. Electronic galley provided for review by publisher via Netgalley.
The eight stories collected in Schappell’s book are remarkable not only because Schappell is a good writer who gets in close to her characters but also because she writes tough, smart characters who connect with the reader during moments of revelation. There is not only a great sense of care taken with each of the characters, but a great deal of detail given to the characters and the stories they are telling. These stories are intelligent, unflinchingly honest, and contain an uncanny ability to observe the dichotomy of toughness and vulnerability present in women’s lives.
The stories in this collection interconnect with one another. In the first story, “Monsters of the Deep,” a young girl struggles with being labeled the town tramp. Readers revisit her in the last story, “I’m Only Going to Tell You This Once,” as she talks to her teenage son and tries to reconcile her own past. In “The Joy of Cooking,” Emily, a recovering anorexic, has a prolonged phone conversation with her mother that explores the complexity of their relationship (this one hit me particularly hard). The women in Schappell’s stories go in and out of each other’s lives and provide a richness to her stories that is memorable and satisfying.
These stories contain characters that will leave lasting impressions on readers. The examination of female identity pervades these stories but never feels overpowering or too didactic. Fans of smart short stories should look no farther: this collection embodies that completely.
The collection is out now.
Blueprints for Building Better Girls by Elissa Schappell. Simon & Shuster: 2011. Electronic galley provided for review by publisher via Netgalley.