Story Review Catch Up 1

My review backlog has got too long for my usual one-post-a-day plan, which I put aside anyway yesterday with two stories and Monster of the Week (for Patrons). So for December I will be trying to catch up. Here are ten stories I have read and what I thought of them:

1. I Have Entered My Garden, My Sweetheart, My Bride  by Jen Julian

The children are grown and gone and now their mother grows orchids. They do not understand the orchids. They don’t understand their mother. 

Read This: For some nice orchid descriptions and an inability to comprehend across generations
Don’t Read This: If flower metaphors are not for you 

2. The Things We Do For Love by Avra Magariti 

The narrator is put in a cannon by their partner. It’s romantic. They aren’t going to bring back a star. 

Read This: For a question of how much we will put up with for love, and is it even love
Don’t Read This: if the being shot out a cannon metaphor is too whimsical for you 

 

3. Did the Water by Erin Calabria 

Two girls sit under a bridge, drinking ice tea and smoking. One day the bridge will be gone and they’ll remember. But for now they’re all there. 

Read This: For a brief meditation on a transient ephemeral moment
Don’t Read This: If you want anything to happen in the story 

4. The Gardener by Rudyard Kipling 

A short story in which Helen Turrell brings up a boy who is supposed to be her brother’s child after he dies (the marriage is apparently a misalliance thanks to class differences). He grows up, joins the army during WW1, serves with distinction and then is killed. Helen has recovered somewhat from this when his body is found and buried, and she takes a trip to see the grave, a common event in those days. There she is directed to the site, and confirmed as Michael’s actual (biological or not according to taste) mother, by a man she takes to be the gardener.

There’s much of interest here, the matter of fact description of the war, the visits to the war graves being an industry of sorts, and Kipling’s subtle religious touch. 

Read This: For some period reflection of loss in WW1
Don’t Read This: If even supposing him to be the gardener is too Christian a point 

5. Ghost Me In The Ghost Moon by Faye Brinsmead 

They quarantined the moon because it could be infectious. They try various replacements and illustrations to take its place. The narrator can see a ghost moon in the dark sky. 

Read This: For an absurd look at reactions to the moon
Don’t Read This: The moon? Quarantined? Absurd I say. 

6. Mirror Girls by Kira Bell 

There are two sisters who are identical in every way. Then one day, one is a pound heavier, the other a pound later. They begin to diverge, the larger sister becoming part of the landscape, the smaller vanishing. 

Read This: For identical sisters changing beyond all possible comprehensibility
Don’t Read This: If a fabulist ending isn’t for you 

7. Ripe Bananas by Marta Balcewicz 

Olamide is their daughter and she is brilliant and also wilful. Then at school she’s given a green baby to look after, one which should change colour if cared for properly. 

Olamide is not ready for this. 

Read This: For a strange inverted look at childhood and parenthood
Don’t Read This: If you don’t like being knocked on the head with a message while simultaneously confused by the themes. 

8. Lucy by Christine Brooks 

Lucy’s boyfriend abuses her, and calls her ‘Lucifer’. She goes to the diner’s bathroom with a knife and... 

...leaves to find herself in a nineteenth century lighthouse. 

Maybe she’ll find what she needs there. 

Read This: For a real journey in a short story
Don’t Read This: If figuring out you’ve stepped out of the regular world scenes annoy you as that’s most of this 

9. Slippers by Kim Magowan 

A riff off the fairy tale of the dancing princesses. In this, the king distrusts his princesses and so the princesses come to fool and outwit him. 

Read This: For a funny and cutting version of a fairytale.
Don’t Read This: If fairytales are not your thing 

10. You Don’t Know What’s Important Yet by Meghan Phillips 

The Archivist of Vulnerable Materials has come to take away the vulnerable documents from your life. It’s not clear what they will choose or why they are at risk. 

Read This: To ask what is important amongst the documents?
Don’t Read This: If you want to know why they are important for sure.