Her Body and Other Parties

Any collection of short stories ends up being a mixed bag. Some of them just speak to you more than others. I really liked half of the stories in this collection, and the other half felt dense and over my head. Inaccessible in a way that meant that they probably just weren't for me.

But the ones that worked worked really well. "Especially Heinous" flips Law and Order: SVU on it's head, accusing the audience of being the real monster at the heart of all these stories while Stabler and Benson slowly unravel from the pressure of their lives. "Real Women Have Bodies" and "Eight Bites" were also deliciously creepy, and I enjoyed "Inventory", which has one woman coping with the end of the world by making a list of everyone she's ever had sex with.

The rest fell a bit flat for me. Or left me feeling confused or unsettled in a not-particularly-illuminating way. Carmen Maria Macahdo reminds me a bit of Kelly Link and Helen Oyeyemi. Her work is a bit hit or miss, but when it hits, it's the sort of thing that's going to haunt me for years.

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