Scan barcode
A review by rockjonny
Wild, Fearless Chests by Mandy Beaumont
5.0
I took this book very slowly, one story per day, because I really wanted to savour it. I lost it a bit at the end though where I couldn't control myself and just had to GO WILD, I think the last 3 or 4 stories I read one after the other, I gobbled them up like a GREEDY LITTLE GOOSE, because I have poor impulse control but also because the stories are THAT GOOD.
There were stories in this collection that I liked more than others (3 were 100% perfect perfect PERFECT my favourites but I won't say which because you know, you should love all of your children (or someone else's children?) equally, but there were none that I didn't like.
It reminded me a bit of Roxanne Gay's Difficult Women, in a really good way. Where I found Difficult Women sometimes lagged, Wild Fearless Chests does not - it is unrelenting. Powerful, super contemporary, an important book that isn't OBSESSED with its own importance, I would recommend this book to a lot of people, maybe even some that I think might not exactly 'enjoy' it, just because I think they SHOULD read it anyway.
Mandy Beaumont's style has a musicality about it, there's a certain tempo to the writing which is more obvious in some stories (looking at you (with heart eye emojis), Bright Light and All Brilliance) and less obvious in others, but nevertheless present throughout. Musicality is not the right word, but I've been looking at synonyms and I can't find the right one. Also I discovered just now that I have been using the world patina in ENTIRELY THE WRONG WAY my WHOLE LIFE (it's something to do with metal!! WHO KNEW?!?!). Timbre? If there's a word to describe the way Patti Smith slips in and out of poetry, prose and verse with the ease of channel flipping on TV, let me know. GERMAN MAYBE?
I was lucky enough to snag this book in the Authors For Firies auction on twitter, and would happily spend $100 on it again.
I CAN'T WAIT to see what's coming next from Mandy Beaumont, so if she's reading this, GET CRACKING.
There were stories in this collection that I liked more than others (3 were 100% perfect perfect PERFECT my favourites but I won't say which because you know, you should love all of your children (or someone else's children?) equally, but there were none that I didn't like.
It reminded me a bit of Roxanne Gay's Difficult Women, in a really good way. Where I found Difficult Women sometimes lagged, Wild Fearless Chests does not - it is unrelenting. Powerful, super contemporary, an important book that isn't OBSESSED with its own importance, I would recommend this book to a lot of people, maybe even some that I think might not exactly 'enjoy' it, just because I think they SHOULD read it anyway.
Mandy Beaumont's style has a musicality about it, there's a certain tempo to the writing which is more obvious in some stories (looking at you (with heart eye emojis), Bright Light and All Brilliance) and less obvious in others, but nevertheless present throughout. Musicality is not the right word, but I've been looking at synonyms and I can't find the right one. Also I discovered just now that I have been using the world patina in ENTIRELY THE WRONG WAY my WHOLE LIFE (it's something to do with metal!! WHO KNEW?!?!). Timbre? If there's a word to describe the way Patti Smith slips in and out of poetry, prose and verse with the ease of channel flipping on TV, let me know. GERMAN MAYBE?
I was lucky enough to snag this book in the Authors For Firies auction on twitter, and would happily spend $100 on it again.
I CAN'T WAIT to see what's coming next from Mandy Beaumont, so if she's reading this, GET CRACKING.