A review by andib
Even Greater Mistakes: Stories by Charlie Jane Anders

5.0

One thing I have learned about Charlie Jane Anders' books and stories is that you can't predict what you will get from one to the next, with the exceptions of incredible creativity/imagination and a clear passion for her stories and characters. These are the common threads uniting an otherwise very much assorted set of stories. My favorites come at the beginning and end: "As Good As New," "The Bookstore at the End of America," and "The Visitmothers," all of which had a warm, lovely center. But I also loved "The Time Travel Club" and "Clover," the latter of which is a companion to her Nebula-winning novel All the Birds in the Sky.

The rest of the stories run a gamut from the elegaic and literary to the dark and dangerous to the quirky, bold, and weird. The most powerful story here is "Don't Press Charges and I Won't Sue," a futuristic horror story in which trans people's genders are forcibly eradicated. The story is a gut-punch and stays with you. I have read it and will read it only once.

This one gets shelved along with my other anthologies by masters of the genre, and I'm sure I'll be returning to its pages again and again.