The Devil You Know by Jenn Farrell
My rating: 4/5 cats
there, that is my cranky DBR golden ager PSA—you have words, use ’em. got it??
good.
jenn farrell is pretty great. look, alan—they are stories, and i loved them!!
i also love this concoction i made with mint and lemon and ginger and white wine:
but we will focus our pleasantly sloshed minds on the matter at hand.
these stories kind of kick ass. i was concerned about them, pre-read, because i thought, for some god-only-knows reason, she was one of those authors that tried the shock value thing without having anything behind it to brace the story up. shock bores me, if that makes sense. not that i’m unshockable, but i’m just unimpressed by people who think they are shocking; who deliberately go about with their shock flamethrowers. spectacle is boring.
but these stories had a depth which surprised me.
Grimsby Girls is the best one—a collage of women’s voices confessing their “first time” stories, good or bad. it should be required reading for young girlbuds before they make that decision (for those for whom it is in fact their decision): it isn’t always going to be great, it’s not that important, don’t do it just to get it over with or to keep up with the jonses…but, yeah, it certainly can be great. spectacular, even. this is probably why i shouldn’t have the children—my impulses are awful, but i think this take on sexuality would be a real eye-opener, considering the age-appropriate alternatives. in fact, a lot of these stories would be good reading for tough girlteens. they are certainly not the intended audience, but it can’t hurt to expose them to something real and confident and brutal. can it?? again, that is my impulse. my daughters would be warriors.
i think the first story was one of the weakest, which was a nice surprise. from a story about grief and aimlessness to maternal failure to a pregnancy scare, each story builds upon the previous emotion and inflates the situation just one breath more until the final story overflows into apocalyptically questionable decision-making with a bang of consequence.
good good stuff.
my only gripe is with the endings of The Devil You Know and Soft Limits. View Spoiler »
joo know?
i don’t know what else to say, D or not…again, canada has come through for me.
another round, karen?? don’t mind if i do…
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