Book Rec ~ Salt Slow, by Julia Armfield

Salt Slow
by Julia Armfield

Coming October 8, 2019

This collection of stories is about women and their experiences in society, about bodies and the bodily, mapping the skin and bones of its characters through their experiences of isolation, obsession and love. Throughout the collection, women become insects, men turn to stone, a city becomes insomniac and bodies are picked apart to make up better ones. The mundane worlds of schools and sea side towns are invaded and transformed by the physical, creating a landscape which is constantly shifting to hold on to the bodies of its inhabitants. Blending the mythic and the fantastic, the collection considers characters in motion – turning away, turning back or simply turning into something new.

From the winner of The White Review Short Story Prize 2018, salt slow is an extraordinary collection of short stories that are sure to dazzle and shock.

 

I rated this book 4.5/5 stars. The writing is visceral, magical, and sometimes horrifying. You can read my full review over at The Girly Book Club’s website!

❤️ Jenna

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Review – How to Fracture a Fairy Tale, by Jane Yolen

How to Fracture a Fairy Tale
by Jane Yolen

Genre: Short Stories, Retellings

Length: 240 Pages

Release date: November 5, 2018

Publisher: Tachyon Publications

Synopsis:

Fantasy legend Jane Yolen (The Emerald Circus, The Devil’s Arithmetic) delights with this effortlessly wide-ranging offering of fractured fairy tales. Yolen fractures the classics to reveal their crystalline secrets, holding them to the light and presenting them entirely transformed; where a spinner of straw into gold becomes a money-changer and the big bad wolf retires to a nursing home. Rediscover the fables you once knew, rewritten and refined for the world we now live in―or a much better version of it.

My thanks to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for sending me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own and are not influenced by the publisher.

I have mixed feelings about this anthology, making it difficult to give it an overall rating that feels accurate. There were a few stories that I really enjoyed, but a few too many that never sufficiently grabbed my interest. I love fractured fairy tales, and think I was looking for more drastic changes from the original source material in some cases. What’s the point of writing a retelling without turning the whole story upside-down and making us think about it in a totally new light?

One thing that I loved about this collection was the sheer variety of stories and cultures represented. This anthology includes dragons, princesses, a vampire, and even time travel; you will find stories that feel like they could have been plucked out of a Brothers Grimm book as well as much more modern tales. The Jewish themes seemed to be the most prominent throughout the anthology, but Yolen has reworked tales from Europe, Asia, and more.

Here is a small sampling of the sources of inspiration for some of Yolen’s stories:

• The Bridge’s Complaint – Billy Goats Gruff, Norwegian
• One Ox, Two Ox, Three Ox, and the Dragon King – Chinese dragon stories
• Brother Hart – Brothers Grimm story (Little Brother Little Sister)
• Sun/Flight – Icarus, Greek Mythology
• The Foxwife – figure from Japanese folklore
• The Faery Flag – Scottish folklore
• One Old Man, With Seals – Greek mythology
• The Undine – inspired by Little Mermaid and various French stories
• Sister Death – Jewish myth
• The Woman Who Loved a Bear – Native American myth

The stories vary quite a bit in tone; many of them use somewhat antiquated language, while the occasional tale reads like something a friend is telling you over coffee. These differences helped to break up the anthology and keep it from feeling overly uniform or repetitive. The variety assures that there will be something in this collection for just about everyone. Whether you’re looking for something totally re-imagined, something with a classical feel, something whimsical, or something dark, you’ll find it somewhere in these pages.

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Thank you for reading! What is your favorite retelling of a classic fairy tale? Discuss in the comments!

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Review – Evidence of the Affair, by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Evidence of the Affair
by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Genre: Short Story, Epistolary

Release date: September 20, 2018

Publisher: Amazon Original Stories

Synopsis: 

The repercussions of an illicit affair unfold in this short story by bestselling author Taylor Jenkins Reid.

Dear stranger…

A desperate young woman in Southern California sits down to write a letter to a man she’s never met—a choice that will forever change both their lives.

My heart goes out to you, David. Even though I do not know you…

The correspondence between Carrie Allsop and David Mayer reveals, piece by piece, the painful details of a devastating affair between their spouses. With each commiserating scratch of the pen, they confess their fears and bare their souls. They share the bewilderment over how things went so wrong and come to wonder where to go from here.

Told entirely through the letters of two comforting strangers and those of two illicit lovers, Evidence of the Affair explores the complex nature of the heart. And ultimately, for one woman, how liberating it can be when it’s broken.

This will be a short review for a short story. My love for Taylor Jenkins Reid has been no secret on this blog. I think I mention The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo every chance I get. So Evidence of the Affair was a lovey surprise today when it popped up on my news feed.

This story is told in the form of a series of letters. Two strangers, Carrie and David, begin writing to one another when Carrie discovers that their respective spouses have been having an affair. Carrie discovers the affair when she finds (you guessed it) a stack of love letters from another woman, stashed away in her husband’s briefcase.

Neither Carrie nor David are immediately ready to call it quits on their marriages. Unsure of how they plan to handle things, they don’t feel comfortable discussing things with anyone but each other. The result is that the two slowly begin to form an unlikely bond, as they feel like kindred spirits in their heartache.

My mother has always told me that I have more opportunities, as a woman of my generation, than she ever had. She made it seem like I had an obligation to use them how she would have.

The character development with Carrie was flawless and she was definitely my favorite part of this story. She married young and hasn’t had a career during her marriage, and we watch her struggle to find faith in her own ability to be independent. I was rooting for her to find strength and a sense of self worth from start to finish.

Maybe I’m not equipped for short stories, because this definitely left me wanting more at the end. Can we get a sequel? Also, there was a Daisy Jones reference because Taylor Jenkins Reid feels like tormenting me by casually mentioning her book that isn’t coming out until March. Thanks, Taylor.

Purchase Evidence of the Affair for Kindle here.

Thank you for reading? Have you read any of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s work? Discuss your favorite in the comments!

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Review – The Grownup, by Gillian Flynn

The Grownup
by Gillian Flynn

Genre: Short Stories, Horror

Length: 64 Pages

Release date: November 3, 2015

Blurb via GoodReads: 

A canny young woman is struggling to survive by perpetrating various levels of mostly harmless fraud. On a rainy April morning, she is reading auras at Spiritual Palms when Susan Burke walks in. A keen observer of human behavior, our unnamed narrator immediately diagnoses beautiful, rich Susan as an unhappy woman eager to give her lovely life a drama injection. However, when the “psychic” visits the eerie Victorian home that has been the source of Susan’s terror and grief, she realizes she may not have to pretend to believe in ghosts anymore. Miles, Susan’s teenage stepson, doesn’t help matters with his disturbing manner and grisly imagination. The three are soon locked in a chilling battle to discover where the evil truly lurks and what, if anything, can be done to escape it.

The Grownup is a short story which features what seems to be the archetypal Gillian Flynn protagonist: a dark, gritty woman with somewhat of a chip on her shoulder and an unapologetic attitude. She is pragmatic and has grown up doing whatever needed to be done for survival; as a child, that meant begging for money with her mother, and now it means giving handjobs to lonely businessmen or telling fortunes to gullible customers. Honesty is for people who can be sure where they’ll be getting their next meal. She doesn’t have the luxury.

The story was fun and creepy. Flynn writes full-length novels so well, and I had wondered how her skills would transfer to a short story, as she seems to be a master at crafting slow-burning stories. The pacing of The Grownup was quick and engaging; I practically got whiplash trying to keep up with the plot twists.

Flynn seems to have a penchant for leaving the reader hanging in a moment of tension. While this worked really well in Gone Girl, it left The Grownup feeling somewhat lacking, perhaps due to the shorter length of the story. (If you’re only going to give me 64 pages to enjoy, at least give me a resolution at the end of them.) The ambiguous ending felt frustrating rather than tantalizing.

I loved the story, but I need some closure here, Gillian Flynn.

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Thank you for reading! Have you read any good short stories lately? Share in the comments!

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