About 4.5 stars, rounded up for an excellent last act. This book gets so much right about bullying and adolescent uncertainty without ever swinging inAbout 4.5 stars, rounded up for an excellent last act. This book gets so much right about bullying and adolescent uncertainty without ever swinging into preachiness. RTC....more
This was about 4.25 stars for me. It's quite an imaginative framework exploring fairy tales and the cost of others twisting your story. This one is liThis was about 4.25 stars for me. It's quite an imaginative framework exploring fairy tales and the cost of others twisting your story. This one is lightly speculative fiction, with a lot of the trauma (though not all of it) able to interpreted as metaphor-- no magical showdowns here, but there's just enough of the uncanny to keep this in the realm of magical realism rather than straight literary fiction for me.
The voices really make this story. Five women come to a support group to tell their stories, one each week, and they all genuinely feel like they come from different backgrounds, with their ages (from a young reality TV star to a respectable wife with a daughter in college), income, and unique trauma playing a role in the story. I think you could take a non-plot paragraph from any chapter in this story and identify the speaker almost immediately. It's striking to see how honest the story is about money and how the lack of it makes you vulnerable-- I don't see that often in fantasy except as set dressing. Each woman begins her story in a place of poverty and risk that makes each of them more desperate to take chances, to change something about their lives, despite subtle warning signs or direct advice against it. Many of them are still poor when they come to the support group, clinging precariously to dead-end jobs or not sure how to leave gilded cages without a plan for what comes next.
Each woman has been through a bizarre experience with a touch of fairy tale to it, from Bernice's experience with tech entrepreneur Bluebeard (who dyes his facial hair and is believably insufferable) to Gretel's childhood nightmare of a situation that she and her brother remember very differently. Some recall every moment in horrifying detail; others are questioning what they remember, or allude to it only in metaphor, but the picture of how trauma has stretched across their lives for years afterwards makes for great character reading. The story also explores the murkier ground of secondary trauma: most of these women have had every detail and speculation about their experiences splashed across the tabloids and Twitter to be picked apart. The harassment and doubt make it hard for them to believe that it's worth telling the truth in public, or that anyone would believe them if they did, but there's some value in telling their stories to each other, even when they argue and pick at each other.
This bit is a good summation of the frustration simmering beneath their stories: "Be patient, be kind, be good, say please, say thank you, don’t speak unless spoken to, don’t forget to smile, don’t give it all away, don’t disobey your teachers, your boyfriend, your husband, your producers. But don’t, you know, follow them blindly either. Hold this key, but don’t go in there. Don’t you dare open that door. Don’t cross the street without looking both ways, but don’t dawdle. Yeah, don’t get distracted on your way. Or, actually, you know what? Maybe don’t even be out there, on the street, not if it’s dark, not if you’re alone, not if you’re a kid, not if you’re a woman, not without a rape whistle around your neck, not without pepper spray clutched in your hand, not, anyway, if you’re wearing that outfit. But, I mean, don’t be a prude either."
I have a few minor quibbles (the reality TV star could have used a neater fairy-tale hook, for instance), but overall I found the story fascinating. Adelman uses the framework of stories we all know to dive deeper into the trauma of living through them and surviving afterwards. The tone easily could have been extra-sweet and encouraging about the value of hope, but instead it's hilarious and honest and unflinching about the difficulties of surviving horror and not finding comfort for it on the other side. Highly recommended if you like a lot of character work, support-group stories, or fairy tale retellings that feel fresh rather than dusty.
Content warnings: moderate to severe; (view spoiler)[the story deals with a lot of difficult material, including sexual exploitation, gaslighting, disordered eating, child abuse, murder, corpse mutilation, and sexual assault. I'd say that it's not generally graphic or gratuitous, but these women have all been through some serious trauma. (hide spoiler)]
Other recommendations: -The Refrigerator Monologues by Catherynne Valente is the ideal paired read for this experience. The book is a series of monologues from women who have been "fridged" in the service of men's stories, each one inspired by a famous death or trauma from the likes of Gwen Stacy or Jean Grey. It's the most emotionally raw and blunt of Valente's writing that I've seen. -The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter is fantastic if you want the more undiluted "dark/ twisted fairy tale" experience. It's a collection of retold stories with a centering of women's sexuality and trauma. ...more
Absolutely beautiful. This is about 4.25 stars for me, I think, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it in the next round of Hugo discussions. The charaAbsolutely beautiful. This is about 4.25 stars for me, I think, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it in the next round of Hugo discussions. The character work, imagery, and metaphor are great all around-- I would have liked to see a slightly more anchored approach to the question of who can see the mirrored glass and interact with it, but that may be a fantasty/ magical realism divide, and this book is more the second.
This book deals carefully and painfully with questions of sexual assault, blame, and recovery, and some scenes are really going to stick with me. Full review to come. ...more
4 stars for me. There are some small wobbles here, but overall, it's a warm story of two adult sisters and the subtle magic in their town. RTC.4 stars for me. There are some small wobbles here, but overall, it's a warm story of two adult sisters and the subtle magic in their town. RTC....more
L (Nineteen Adze)
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Books:
magical-realism
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