Museum of the Weird by Amelia Gray
My rating: 3/5 cats
i think this is the kind of collection that it is best not to read all at once. i should have set a limit on them—three a day or something. i think they are too short to read all at one go—they are so short that it is hard not to read them all at once, but i think i would have enjoyed them more had i read them in tinier gulps.
the vanished was by far my favorite. to me, it read like an outtake from her full-length novel, threats, which i loved loved loved. this collection was what i expected her stuff to be like before i read threats, and why i had never gone out of my way to read her before. they are short (have i mentioned that they are short??) and imagistic, and i feel like reading them too quickly blurred them in my mind, creating a gloppy stew of scenes that never firmed into stories for me.
there isn’t anything wrong with them, i just didn’t feel there were many that i made a connection with, as a reader. maybe if i were to go back and reread some of them, and then STOP, i would enjoy them more.
as it is, i feel like a failure for not loving them unconditionally as so many other people have. i can no longer write this review, because my head is hanging too far down in shame.
candy comparison for maureen
american smarties, not those british jokers.
we have a candy drawer at work, and usually, when there are only smarties, i just stare at them, thinking “do i want these??” and usually i say “no, i do not.” sometimes, though, i really need that burnt coffee taste out of my mouth, and i will reluctantly grab a package and stalk back to my desk. and i eat them, and usually after four or five, i think to myself, “why am i still eating these?? they are kind of making my stomach unhappy…” but once the package is open, you gotta keep eating them even though you know that you aren’t really enjoying them anymore, and even though you know you might enjoy them later on. but like a robot, i will keep eating them far past any actual enjoyment. and then i will feel a sense of accomplishment when the package is finished.
smarties make me stupid.
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