What the Dead Know is about a lot of difficult stuff, and Butcher doesn’t shield us from the gore. But she does wisely keep it tastefully select in its details, delivering realness without exploitation.
Tag Archives: Would read again
Wishes get Colonized and Corporatized in Shubeik Lubeik
The repercussions from wishes are negligible for the haves and devastating for the have-nots. Following the rules is detrimental for some, and far outside the sphere of concern for others. As with many things designed to “make life better”—technology, say, or medicine—the artificial scaffolding around wishes exacerbate, rather than reduce, inequality in the society they occupy.
‘Fire’ a Rich Historical Tragedy with a Glimmer of Hope
The four point-of-view characters do all give us a different view of the disaster. It’s a testament to Beanland’s writing and research that the characters all feel so human, and the world around them so real.
‘Butcher’ a Fairy Tale of Trauma
The trauma at the heart of The Butcher is something wound as tightly around every detail as tightly as ivy on a tree. There’s a difference between surviving something and coming back whole, Veris notes early in the book, and it becomes increasingly clear that she’s the one who hasn’t been the same since.
‘Beautiful’ Unflinchingly Humanizes the Invisible Cost of Modern Life
It’s one thing to understand that the status quo demands a human cost in some far-off corner of some anonymous country. It’s another to put faces and stories to that cost, and to see how steep that cost really is, and how our culture is complicit to it.
‘Want Me’ A Look at Sexual Desire Buffered with Kindness
This isn’t a titillating read, but that doesn’t mean that it’s an easy one. Yet the rawness of her recollection was as compelling as it was hard to read, turning Want Me into a thought-provoking exploration into a single person’s experience that looks much too familiar for even someone far outside of her singular experience.
‘Child’ a Powerful Glimpse into ‘Invisible’ Lives
It’s not easy to read about children being abused and neglected, or about prevalent drug use, or the conditions in shelters that are only tolerable because the shelters beat the alternative. Invisible Child, though, was never meant to be easy reading.
‘North Woods’ A Puzzlebox of a Story
Even in its more intricate and obtuse moments, North Woods quickly links itself back to its original purpose: to tell the story of one fictional geographic location through the ages.
‘Panda Killer’ a Story of New Starts and Hard Truths
The story is plenty heavy but never unbearable. And there are moments of levity, and of hope, and joy, for both Jane and Phúc, even as their circumstances make life a little darker for them than for others.
‘True Account’ Combines the Ordinary and Wonderous
I’ve enjoyed reading more collections pushing boundaries—topically or in form, or both—but The True Account of Myself as a Bird is a much more meditative and deceptively simpler animal that has left me with a greater appreciation for the seemingly ordinary things around me.
Ring Reads 