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A review by readthesparrow
Lavender Speculation by Jamie Zaccaria
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.25
This review is based on a reviewer copy sent by the author.
Lavender Speculation has been on my list to read for a while, and I am so glad to have gotten to it. The stories in this collection are speculative fiction, ranging in length from two-page flash fiction pieces to longer short stories.
My favorites of the collection are the dark fairy tale stories, which work best with Zaccaria's style. I had a collection of stories by the brothers Grimm as a kid, and stories such as "Green Forest, White Snow" and "The Abandoned Princess" read like they'd be right at home in that collection. Capturing that childhood feeling of reading a fairy tale for the first time is hard to do, but Zaccaria nailed it. Those two stories were definitely my favorites of the collection.
I think the best stories in the collection are these longer ones. All these stories have interesting ideas or images at the core of them, but the shorter stories just don't give these ideas enough space to fully develop, and Zaccaria's direct style doesn't always work for these, especially for first person stories. For example, "Eviscerate" concluded with an interesting image (a man literally writing his own skin off) but the leadup suffered from heavy telling rather than showing, which just didn't quite work for me.
As said by Nadia Bulkin, Zaccaria is a promising new voice. While I didn't love every story in the collection, I am looking forward to more from Zaccaria, especially when it comes to work in dark fantasy and horror genres.
Lavender Speculation has been on my list to read for a while, and I am so glad to have gotten to it. The stories in this collection are speculative fiction, ranging in length from two-page flash fiction pieces to longer short stories.
My favorites of the collection are the dark fairy tale stories, which work best with Zaccaria's style. I had a collection of stories by the brothers Grimm as a kid, and stories such as "Green Forest, White Snow" and "The Abandoned Princess" read like they'd be right at home in that collection. Capturing that childhood feeling of reading a fairy tale for the first time is hard to do, but Zaccaria nailed it. Those two stories were definitely my favorites of the collection.
I think the best stories in the collection are these longer ones. All these stories have interesting ideas or images at the core of them, but the shorter stories just don't give these ideas enough space to fully develop, and Zaccaria's direct style doesn't always work for these, especially for first person stories. For example, "Eviscerate" concluded with an interesting image (a man literally writing his own skin off) but the leadup suffered from heavy telling rather than showing, which just didn't quite work for me.
As said by Nadia Bulkin, Zaccaria is a promising new voice. While I didn't love every story in the collection, I am looking forward to more from Zaccaria, especially when it comes to work in dark fantasy and horror genres.