Name: Sonja H's review of The Unfinished World by Amber Sparks
Item: The Unfinished World
Rating: 3
Author: Sonja H

Amber Sparks

In the weird and wonderful tradition of Kelly Link and Karen Russell, Amber Sparks’s dazzling new collection bursts forth with stories that render the apocalyptic and otherworldly hauntingly familiar. In “The Cemetery for Lost Faces,” two orphans translate their grief into taxidermy, artfully arresting the passage of time. The anchoring novella, “The Unfinished World,” unfurls a surprising love story between a free and adventurous young woman and a dashing filmmaker burdened by a mysterious family. Sparks’s stories—populated with sculptors, librarians, astronauts, and warriors—form a veritable cabinet of curiosities. Mythical, bizarre, and deeply moving, heralds the arrival of a major writer and illuminates the search for a brief encounter with the extraordinary.

And Other Stories

The Unfinished World

reza gheta

Sonja H

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.

Laura

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...

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The Unfinished World by Amber Sparks

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reza gheta &The Unfinished World by Amber Sparks

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reza gheta &
The Unfinished World by Amber Sparks