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A review by smuds2
You Glow in the Dark by Liliana Colanzi
3.0
Picked up on a whim from the library. I don't generally like Short Story collections, and for some reason I assumed they were all loosely interconnected before i picked up the book... but alas...
Anyways -- the first story in the book is heart wrenching, but I think does a good job setting the tone for the rest of the book. A bit dreamy, fantastical, and a kind of unsentimental violence that feels almost like a fact of life unfortunately thrust on the character by an external force (in the first story, nature, in others, forces of capital).
The second story followed a very similar theme, but this time, it was the abuse experienced by a woman directly at the hands of a partner. Equally unsentimental violence, equally fantastical.
The next story was perhaps my favorite, a collection of characters, all with vaguely unexplained experiences or powers, all reacting to an event.
After that, I felt like the storys blended together and felt significantly more unfocussed (although, that could be my fault for not reading them carefully enough).
I think I would recommend the 1, 2, 3, and 4th story to others. The rest... not so much.
Anyways -- the first story in the book is heart wrenching, but I think does a good job setting the tone for the rest of the book. A bit dreamy, fantastical, and a kind of unsentimental violence that feels almost like a fact of life unfortunately thrust on the character by an external force (in the first story, nature, in others, forces of capital).
The second story followed a very similar theme, but this time, it was the abuse experienced by a woman directly at the hands of a partner. Equally unsentimental violence, equally fantastical.
The next story was perhaps my favorite, a collection of characters, all with vaguely unexplained experiences or powers, all reacting to an event.
After that, I felt like the storys blended together and felt significantly more unfocussed (although, that could be my fault for not reading them carefully enough).
I think I would recommend the 1, 2, 3, and 4th story to others. The rest... not so much.