May We Shed These Human Bodies

Amber Sparks
Curbside Splendor Publishing, Inc.
Reviewed by Nancy
2 out of 5 stars

Summary

May We Shed These Human Bodies peers through vast spaces and skies with the world's most powerful telescope to find humanity: wild and bright and hard as diamonds. A whole sideshow's worth of heartbreaking oddballs and freaks.

Amber Sparks is a Washington DC based author whose work has been widely published. She's one of today's freshest literary fiction voices, drawing on fables and mythologies as inspiration for her fiction that explores the human yearning for understanding and uniquely captures her generation's struggle with today's hyper-techno-crazed world. This is her debut story collection.

My Review

This strange, experimental, imaginative collection is full of brilliant ideas and explores serious issues, but I felt many of the stories were a little too clever, wispy and insubstantial as air. I like the combination of magic realism, fantasy and horror and the variety of stories. There was enough weirdness and bizarre situations to capture my interest, and my enjoyment of stories by Aimee Bender and Kelly Link drew me to this collection. Unfortunately, the character development was lacking and I felt no connection to anyone. I’m sad these stories are already starting to slip away.