Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Armchair BEA 2014: Novellas/Short Stories

Design by Amber of Shelf Notes
To learn more about Armchair BEA, visit HERE.

You guys, I think this may be my favorite topic of the week. I LOVE novellas, novelettes, and short stories. When they were required reading in school, I was a happy, happy girl. Even if I didn't like them, I loved them. (Don't ask how that works.) There's just something about reading something short and sweet, with so much squeezed into one little morsel. Oh, and you know how some of them have open endings? I love those, too. That's a lot of love, huh? We should hug it out.

When I'm looking to read short stories when I'm just farting around on the computer, I go to Tor.com's story section. I have found many quality stories (and fabulous artwork for them!) on the site, and I usually end up buying them for my Kindle, too, so I can read them wherever. The very best one that I've ever come across is Burning Girls by Veronica Schanoes. My review from Goodreads is as follows:

I'm typing sentences, deleting them, and attempting to write more. I don't know what to really say except that Burning Girls left me speechless. I started reading the story without reading any reviews or the words italicized at the start. It was on Tor.Com - what else did I need to know?

What I found in Burning Girls was a striking mixture of witchcraft, Judaic mythology, fairy tale, history, and feminism. The more I read, the more I was sucked in by the writing of Veronica Schanoes. She weaved the above-mentioned elements into her world flawlessly and held me helplessly ensnared in it. By the time I reached the end, my skin crawled and was covered with chill bumps.

Veronica Schanoes' Burning Girls is a story you should put aside an hour for, and she is definitely a writer whose future works I will be impatiently waiting to read.


Trust me when I say it's good stuff.

What is your favorite short story?

5 comments:

  1. Sounds like a good read! I love an open ending too. It makes me think and let's me come up with my own theories.

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    1. Old school sci-fi was the best with its open endings. I don't finish many series because I like to come up with my own ideas of what happens to the characters. :-)

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  2. Ooh! Thanks for the heads up on that one!

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  3. Well now! I will for sure check that story out. A couple of favorites:

    The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
    The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe.

    Thanks again for your recommend I am really looking forward to it!!!

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  4. You're the second recommendation for Burning Girls I've come across in the last 5 minutes. . . downloading it to my kindle as we speak!

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You are going to put words in my box?! *squeezes you* Now I shall stalk YOUR blog!