The Unfinished World And Other Stories

Ich bin kein Fan von Kurzgeschichten, aber diese hier sind sehr gut geschrieben und ich konnte in einige schnell eintauchen. Aber viele fand ich etwas schräg und unverständlich und habe mich nicht darin wohlgefühlt, daher nur 3 Sterne.

Keeping up with my recent theme of short stories, we have The Unfinished World by Amber Sparks. Like I mentioned in my By Light We Knew Our Names review, my favorite vehicle for magical realism is the short story. I find that it's much easier for me to swallow tastes of magic as opposed to whole novels draped in heavy metaphorical meanings that usually come with the territory. There is no doubt in my mind that Sparks is wonderful at what she does. Each story is masterfully written, with inventive characters and it was easy for her to lure me into the bite-sized worlds she had created. And unlike the above mentioned Anne Valente, Sparks refreshingly keeps her messages concealed enough from the stories that they don't overwhelm them, with a few exceptions like the first story, the Space Janitor, which is a pretty blunt-faced commentary on the way women are treated. Blessedly, it's a short one. My favorite story in the collection was The Cemetery for Lost Faces, because I really liked the characters and the plot and the idea behind it. But that's just me, I like reading about taxidermy, heck, one of the stories I'm fiddling around with has a taxidermist main character. I also liked Thirteen Ways to Destroy a Painting, which was managed to be both funny and touching at the same time. One of the problems I had with The Unfinished World, though, is that I was underwhelmed by the titular novella. I really liked the idea behind it and the story of both Set and Inge's family, but it didn't grab me the way her shorter works did. I think Sparks' brevity is her biggest strength and she would do well to stick to writing almost flash fiction length stories. Continue reading this review on my blog here: https://bookwormbasics.blogspot.com/2...