When I was wallowing in the teen years, I wasn’t too keen on short story collections. Too much interrupted reading–just as I got into a story and really got to know the main characters, it ended. There was one exception–an AWESOME collection of short horror fiction edited by Issac Asimov called Young Monsters. It was all about teen monsters and a lot of their “monstrosities” could easily be synonyms for the absolute horror of being an ugly adolescent. It’s long out of print now, so I’m not going to include it below, but it really captured my imagination. In fact, I recently found an old copy on my public library shelves and re-read it, and it was just as great as I remembered. This inspired me to go back through my list of recent reads, and I actually found a lot of short fiction collections that are pretty damn good. So here they are–if you generally find that short stories suck, try these. In my opinion, they are collections that You Might Actually Want to Read!
Short Cuts
You Don’t Even Know Me: Stories and poems about BOYS by Sharon G. Flake
11.27
Though I am grateful for many things this Thanksgiving weekend, one item that tops my list is Sharon G. Flake’s new collection of short stories and poems featuring teenage boys and their angst. She is one of the hippest authors for teens around, and a new title from her is ALWAYS cause for celebration. This book is a companion piece to one of her earlier works, Who Am I Without Him? Short stories about girls and the boys in their lives (a title I have successfully shopped to so many teens I’ve lost count), and provides the adolescent 411 from the dudes’ POV. Navigating issues from teen marriage and suicide, to neighborhood politics and hot moms who attract unwanted attention, these guys struggle to make sense of the world around them while trying to solve that most maddening of mysteries—what makes girls tick? Flake also dishes up some hot poetry in this collection, including this excerpt from the title poem, “You Don’t Even Know Me”: You tell me to quit fronting,/ You ask who I think I am,/Pretending/That I’m better than you know I really am./…You know/I’ve been wondering lately,/Trying to figure out just how it could be/That we call each other brother,/And you still don’t know a thing about me/ There’s some surprises here, too. I like all the stories, but my favorite just might be “Fakin’ It,” about a last-chance boy who’s been kicked out of every one of his relatives’ homes and is now about to be kicked out of his aunt’s house, a six million dollar lottery winner. Despite her new money and resources, she still has old-school rules and he still can’t seem to follow them no matter how many chances she gives him. Unusual and unsettling because we like to think money solves everything, I just can’t get that story out of my head. So if you want to be moved to tears, laugh out loud, or be lit up with surprise, then this is YOUR book.
Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor, with illustrations by Jim Di Bartolo
11.15
Remember your first kiss? While I’m sure it was exhilarating, it was most likely a great deal tamer than the supernatural busses that take center stage in Laini Taylor’s delicious collection of fantasy romances. In “Goblin Fruit,” a lonely girl wishes for love, but finds something else entirely behind a new boy’s perfect lips: “The goblins want girls who dream so hard about being pretty their yearning leaves a palpable trail, a scent goblins can follow like sharks on a soft bloom of blood.” Beautiful boy or secret beast? Only a kiss will tell…In “Spicy Little Curses Such as These,” a young WWI solider travels to India to forget the horrors of war and finds his true love. Except, she is under a curse that claims if she speaks, all who hear her will die. Will their first kiss unleash passion or destruction? Finally, a young girl finds her fate tied to that of benevolent demon when she discovers she has unknowingly incubated the love of his immortal life deep within her soul in “Hatchling.” Each story hinges on one fated kiss that holds the power of life and death, love and loss, happiness and despair. All it takes is lips touching three times to produce one dreamy, steamy reading experience. Laini Taylor’s luxuriant writing will transport you to faraway lands where demons frolic, Hell is a place of cleansing and rebirth, and destinies are determined by the whim of cold sorceress queens. Her husband Jim Di Bartolo’s opulent illustrations rendered in black, red and cream are the perfect compliment to Taylor’s plush prose, and are so lovingly detailed you will want to go back and linger over them again and again. Still thinking about your first kiss? Relive the magic, danger and decadence of it all again through the richly realized characters in Taylor’s tantalizing tome.
Sideshow edited by Deborah Noyes
09.15
Regular readers of RR know I am big fan of the multi-talented Deborah Noyes and her horror-ific short story collections. In this latest macabre mishmash, Noyes asks authors to turn their attention to that object of endless fascination: the sideshow freak. The resulting ten stories are both striking and spellbinding. Step right up to the striped tent and meet Aimee Bender’s “Bearded Girl” and Cynthia Leitich Smith’s slinky feline shape shifter. Over there beneath the Midway, you’ll find Annette Curtis Klause’s resourceful Egyptian dancer who, despite her maturity, still needs her “Mummy” now and then. Out behind the Big Top, God (yes, THAT one) visits a couple of kids who just lost their dog in David Almond’s dreamy contribution, while Cecil Castellucci’s heroine discovers a distasteful family legacy in “The Bread Box.” There’s also some cool comic shorts, including my favorite story of all, Matt Phelan’s “Jargo!” about the mysterious front end of a fake circus giraffe who was NOT to be messed with. Wacky, weird and sometimes tragic, these stories will stick with you long after you close the garish covers of this compelling and odd compilation. And the only ticket you need to get into Noyes’s freak parade? Why, your library card of course!
The Eternal Smile by Gene Luen Yang & Derek Kirk Kim
04.05
Dashing young Duncan is either a handsome knight trying to win the heart of a princess by relieving the dreaded Frog King of his head, OR just another downtrodden teen trying to get by in the projects of Oakland, as his depressed mom dates one jerk after another. Greedy Gran’Pa Greenbax is either a latter day Scrooge McDuck-like animated TV star, OR just a little freshwater frog who’s been used and abused by cruel humans. Meek Janet is either a stately Nigerian princess, OR just another cubicle-dwelling office drone. No one is quite who they seem to be in this lushly illustrated, full-color collaboration between two of the best author/illustrators in the comic biz. But no matter what their circumstances, each character manages to discover hidden stores of bravery, hope and optimism that help clear away the dark clouds of anger, fear and pride. And what is the Eternal Smile? Well, it’s either the face of God or a hole in the ceiling, and the only person who can decide that is YOU, dear reader! Award winning authors and illustrators Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kirk Kim will both blow and bend your mind with these three quirky, offbeat Twilight Zone-meets-Pushing Daisies short stories about love, life and the power of the imagination. I didn’t even have to get to the last page to know that what I was holding in my hands was pure graphic novel gold.
Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd, edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci
11.10
Geeks of the world, rejoice! Several of the best YA authors around have let their freak flags fly in this nerdalicious collection of dork-shorts, and the result is no less than GEEKTASTIC. Are you an astronomy aficionado? A quiz bowl questioner? A crazy ComicCon-er? Perhaps you’re compulsive online gamer, A Rocky Horror crooner, or just simply a Buffy action-figure collector. Whatever brand of freak you are, you will soon recognize yourself and other members of your nerd herd in this outrageously funny and occasionally tragic collection of stories and comics. Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci imagine the impossible love between a Jedi and a Klingon in the star-crossed “Once You’re a Jedi, You’re a Jedi All the Way,” while David Levithan explores quiz bowl backstabbing in “Quiz Bowl Antichrist.” A couple of nerds outsmart their hazers in John Green’s “Freak the Geek,” Cassandra Clare explains what happens when online gamers meet in real life in “I Never,” and Libba Bray will make you cry in “It’s Just a Jump to the Left,” a gorgeously melancholic ode to the Rocky Horror Picture Show and lost innocence. Plus, there’s Lisa Yee’s story of baton-twirling angst, Tracy Lynn’s tale of a cheerleader who finally sees the geek-light, and some totally awesome comic shorts by Hope Larson and Bryan Lee O’Malley. Additional nerd-words are penned Scott Westerfeld, M.T. Anderson, Garth Nix, Kelly Link, Barry Lyga, Wendy Mass and Sara Zarr. As a proud former show choir nerd and theater geek, I dug each and every one of these original stories and I’m sure you will, too. Because when it’s all said and done, “geek” is just shorthand for being passionate about what you love, be it karate or Klingon. And who isn’t passionate about something? Jot this one down for next summer’s reading list, as it won’t be beamed down into a library or bookstore near you until August 2009. May the force be with you until then!
Pretty Monsters: stories by Kelly Link
10.30
This otherworldly collection of short stories by master fantasist Kelly Link is equal parts whimsy and menace, where dreams and nightmares walk hand in hand, and butterflies turn out to be cockroaches. Walk around in Link’s peculiar world for a while, and you might run into a dead teenage girl at the 7-11 (“The Wrong Grave”), or wind up in another dimension if you open “The Faery Handbag.” In “Magic for Beginners,” you can watch a pirated television show called The Library, where the characters may or may not be real—but only if you can find it, because it’s never on the same channel twice. You can divine your inner goddess in “The Constable of Abal,” conjure your inner werewolf in “Pretty Monsters,” or discover that we are all capable of magic in “The Wizards of Perfil.” You’ll never go camping again after meeting the urban legend-y “Monster,” but may be tempted to believe in aliens after shaking hands with “The Surfer.” You can even try on the evil cousin of Harry Potter’s Sorting Hat in “The Specialist’s Hat.” Each story is as unique as a fingerprint, as surreal as a Salvadore Dali painting, and as unforgettable as your first kiss. Just in time for Halloween, these nine stories, quaintly illustrated by Shaun Tan, are full of tricks AND treats!
Who Can Save Us Now?: Brand-New Superheroes and Their Amazing (Short) Stories edited by Owen King and John McNally (Illustrations by Chris Burnham)
09.20
This generous helping of superhero soup will quickly sate the appetites of those of you who continue to crave tales of men (or women) in tights outside of comic books. Going way beyond Superman or Wonder Woman, these superheroes range from the bizarre to the merely banal, each one unique in his or her own quirky way. The opener, “Girl Reporter,” tells how one famous superhero’s initial rough edges were smoothed by his unsung journalist girlfriend, creating the classy crime fighter we know and love today. In “The Quick Stop 5,” several slacker convenience story employees discover they have been granted powers by a particularly aromatic batch of diesel fuel, and become a national brand faster than you can say “Hannah Montana.” I also quite enjoyed the stories of America’s most disgusting superhero, The Silverfish (“Remains of the Night”) and it’s most unusual (“The Meerkat”—I know, I’m still scratching my head over that one, too. But trust me, it works). And then there’s “The Pentecostal Home for Flying Children,” where one womanizing superhero has left behind all his red-headed airborne offspring to be raised by a forgiving woman of God. In the darker themed “Roe #5,” a woman discovers that her past has come back to haunt her in not-quite human form, and in “Man Oh Man, –It’s Manna Man,” one man uses his powers of persuasion to make crooked television evangelists donate to the needy instead of themselves. But my favorite stories may have been in the last section, “Super Ordinary.” There, David Yoo relates the tale of “The Somewhat Super,” those who have the dubious ability of not having to go to the bathroom (EVER), or the less than impressive power of…static electricity. Kelly Braffet explores what it feels like to have the power of bad luck in “Bad Karma Girl Wins at Bingo,” while Jennifer Weiner tells of the story of a down-and-out writer who suddenly discovers she can speak to dead people—and find missing children. Finally, David Haynes ends the collection with “The Lives of Ordinary Superheroes,” which explains what happens to old superheroes—do they retire, or just fade away? Awesomely illustrated by Chris Burnham, this super-sized collection (22 stories in all) should keep you busy at least until the sequel to Ironman comes out!
