A review by allusory
Burning Girls and Other Stories by Veronica Schanoes
3.0
It's rare to find a writer who can transmute history and myth into entirely new creations, but Schanoes has a gift for alchemy. The bones of many stories collected in Burning Girls are pulled from fables and tales that many readers will find familiar, yet Schanoes constructs from them fantastic visions that will burn themselves into your memory. These are not pretty stories. These are not easy stories. But they are often important stories.
Two of these tales in particular are incandescently good. The opening Among the Thorns and the titular Burning Girls demand to be remembered and dwelled upon. While the remainder of the collection is uneven, every story contains at it's heart an interesting spark. Often drawing on real women or historical events, over the course of the collection Schanoes spans centuries of time to visit phantasmagoric visions upon us. From Emma Goldman sitting down to tea with Baba Yaga to a woman calling up a revenant for revenge in a gentrified SoHo, every story is surprising. It's rare that women get to bare their anger, their passions, their divine and ugly facets in the way the characters in these pages do.
This collection is worth a read through. And personally, I can't wait to see what Schanoes writes next.
A digital copy of this book was provided by Tor.com for review
Two of these tales in particular are incandescently good. The opening Among the Thorns and the titular Burning Girls demand to be remembered and dwelled upon. While the remainder of the collection is uneven, every story contains at it's heart an interesting spark. Often drawing on real women or historical events, over the course of the collection Schanoes spans centuries of time to visit phantasmagoric visions upon us. From Emma Goldman sitting down to tea with Baba Yaga to a woman calling up a revenant for revenge in a gentrified SoHo, every story is surprising. It's rare that women get to bare their anger, their passions, their divine and ugly facets in the way the characters in these pages do.
This collection is worth a read through. And personally, I can't wait to see what Schanoes writes next.
A digital copy of this book was provided by Tor.com for review