oddly's review against another edition
5.0
This is one horror collection that no shelf should be without.
I have been hearing a lot of love for this writer and this collection of stories, and it is completely justified. The hype is real, y'all! Go out and buy your copy immediately—no joke.
The stories felt in the tradition of Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber, with a mix of fairy tale elements like the twist on a poisoned apple story or the tale of princesses stuck in castles, some strangeness that could be read as metaphorical but also worked as great body horror like the one where a woman is giving birth to birds or the one where a group of women hunt for potential victims and peel their skin off to use for themselves.
In these stories, Kiste explores women at the fringes—the outcasts, the strange, the othered. The stories are interested in how these women are seen as outsiders and how they work with the limitations others have put on them and overcome them in one way or another.
I loved how the characters in these stories take action. They are not the stagnant, mopey, unreliable narrator types that are so common in the popular thrillers today. These women are powerful and have clear, strong notions of what they want from the world, even if that notion is not the one that lines up with what everyone else wants. Kiste's character's learn they aren't afraid to take what should have been theirs all along. It's empowering and beautiful while leaning over the edge into strange, fantastical, and frightening.
Sometimes the stories defy logic, sometimes they go to very dark places, but they never failed to impress me with the breadth of their creativity, the beauty of the language, and the sharp insights that are not something you always find in horror fiction.
A beautiful and haunting collection. There is not a weak story in the set. Kiste is an author I'm adding to my instant-buy list.
I have been hearing a lot of love for this writer and this collection of stories, and it is completely justified. The hype is real, y'all! Go out and buy your copy immediately—no joke.
The stories felt in the tradition of Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber, with a mix of fairy tale elements like the twist on a poisoned apple story or the tale of princesses stuck in castles, some strangeness that could be read as metaphorical but also worked as great body horror like the one where a woman is giving birth to birds or the one where a group of women hunt for potential victims and peel their skin off to use for themselves.
In these stories, Kiste explores women at the fringes—the outcasts, the strange, the othered. The stories are interested in how these women are seen as outsiders and how they work with the limitations others have put on them and overcome them in one way or another.
I loved how the characters in these stories take action. They are not the stagnant, mopey, unreliable narrator types that are so common in the popular thrillers today. These women are powerful and have clear, strong notions of what they want from the world, even if that notion is not the one that lines up with what everyone else wants. Kiste's character's learn they aren't afraid to take what should have been theirs all along. It's empowering and beautiful while leaning over the edge into strange, fantastical, and frightening.
Sometimes the stories defy logic, sometimes they go to very dark places, but they never failed to impress me with the breadth of their creativity, the beauty of the language, and the sharp insights that are not something you always find in horror fiction.
A beautiful and haunting collection. There is not a weak story in the set. Kiste is an author I'm adding to my instant-buy list.
n0rmann's review against another edition
4.0
It always impresses me when a short story is written so well I get engaged in such a few number of pages!
rock_n_reads's review against another edition
5.0
"We hold on to the memories we don't want, and we lose the ones we cherish."
2019 is going to be the year that I clear some space on my top bookshelf, which is reserved for my favorite reads. I need some room to include the work of Gwendolyn Kiste! Of all the short story collections I've read, this one moved me the most.
Kiste's writing pulled me in from the very first line of the acknowledgements, and it was a struggle to set this collection down from then on. Every single story in this book is well written, and they are woven together by strong female characters and themes of being overlooked, forgotten, or deemed an outsider by society.
If I had to choose, my top five favorite stories would be:
-Skin Like Honey and Lace
-The Tower Princesses
-The Man in the Ambry
-All the Red Apples Have Withered to Gray
-Ten Things to Know About the Ten Questions
I've often been asked why I love books and films that others might find disturbing, and my main answer is that they make me feel. Even if it's not always happy, I enjoy the experience of so many emotions. This collection made me feel. The stories brought me to tears a time or two, and there were many lines that resonated with my own experiences. Closing this book felt like being released from a warm embrace that I never want to end.
2019 is going to be the year that I clear some space on my top bookshelf, which is reserved for my favorite reads. I need some room to include the work of Gwendolyn Kiste! Of all the short story collections I've read, this one moved me the most.
Kiste's writing pulled me in from the very first line of the acknowledgements, and it was a struggle to set this collection down from then on. Every single story in this book is well written, and they are woven together by strong female characters and themes of being overlooked, forgotten, or deemed an outsider by society.
If I had to choose, my top five favorite stories would be:
-Skin Like Honey and Lace
-The Tower Princesses
-The Man in the Ambry
-All the Red Apples Have Withered to Gray
-Ten Things to Know About the Ten Questions
I've often been asked why I love books and films that others might find disturbing, and my main answer is that they make me feel. Even if it's not always happy, I enjoy the experience of so many emotions. This collection made me feel. The stories brought me to tears a time or two, and there were many lines that resonated with my own experiences. Closing this book felt like being released from a warm embrace that I never want to end.
misterkyle1901's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
maggiefan's review
4.0
I loved some of the stories and others I didn't like that much. However it is a really good story collection. My favourite stories are definitely "The Tower Princesses" and "The Man in the Ambry". I also really enjoyed reading "By Now, I'll Probably Be Gone", "The Lazarus Bride" "The Five-day Summer Camp", "Audrey At Night", "Skin Like Honey and Lace" and "The Clawfoot Requiem". I appreciate the authors ability to create such unique and unusual stories.
popularsong's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Pregnancy and Suicide
ashley__reads's review against another edition
5.0
Every story in here was absolutely incredible. They just got better and better as the book went on. I read them in order and I’m glad I did it that way because as the book went on the stories got more and more intense, in my opinion.
aliciar3ads's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
An engaging collection of horror-tinged short stories, powered by grief, fairytales and injustice.
While consistently engaging and full of creativity, there was one stand one story—Audrey at Night—that may be one of the best short stories I’ve ever read. I’d recommend this collection for that story alone. It follows an expecting mother of her first child who is haunted every night by the ghost of her best friend who died a decade earlier. This story was WILD.
While consistently engaging and full of creativity, there was one stand one story—Audrey at Night—that may be one of the best short stories I’ve ever read. I’d recommend this collection for that story alone. It follows an expecting mother of her first child who is haunted every night by the ghost of her best friend who died a decade earlier. This story was WILD.
wpsmith17's review against another edition
5.0
This is an excellent collection. Gwendolyn Kiste is an absolute magician, weaving dark fairy tales that cut so very deep. Her writing is poetic, and I found myself easily enthralled with her twisted worlds. This makes me even more excited to read The Rust Maidens.