Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my review or rating. 

Instead of doing a review of all of the stories (15 of them) I am only going to review the four that I really enjoyed and gave 5 stars to. Everything else was a case of me going what did I just read, or feeling as if the story in question had too many holes or was incomplete in some way. All together I gave a collection a solid three stars. That is usually the way with anthologies unless the majority of the stories area  home run. 

Here is a list of the stories in this collection:

Starsong by Tehlor Kay Mejia 

Afterbirth by Andrea Cremer

The Heart in Her Hands by Tess Sharpe

Death in the Sawtooths by Lindsay Smith

The Truth About Queenie by Brandy Colbert

The Moonapple Menagerie by Shveta Thakrar

The Legend of Stone Mary by Robin Talley

The One Who Stayed by Nova Ren Suma

Divine Are the Stars by Zoraida Córdova 

Daughters of Baba Yaga by Brenna Yovanoff

 The Well Witch by Kate Hart

Beware of Girls with Crooked Mouths by Jessica Spotswood

Love Spell by Anna-Marie McLemore

The Gherin Girls by Emery Lord

 The Only Way Back by Tristina Wright

Why They Watch Us Burn by Elizabeth May

My four favorites are:

Afterbirth by Andrea Cremer. This takes place in the 1600s in New England. An apprentice to a midwife is witnessed to a strange birth with a lot of details leaking out that this birth was not a result of the woman in question having sex with the devil, but more like with the master of the house. This is a great callback to the Salem Witch trials and since I just read a book about Salem, this story was uppermost in my mind while reading it. 

The Truth About Queenie by Brandy Colbert. Ugh. I wanted more. I was so ready to slap the dude in this story. So we have a story about a family of witches who are African American. The main character, is dealing with a lot of guilt we find because she believes (and is probably right) she threw a hex on a former friend who was bullying the love interest in this story. We also have her dealing with the fact that the boy in question is in love with someone else. When someone needs healing, he comes to her and asks for her help. 

The Gherin Girls by Emery Lord. Touches not only upon magic, but about mental and physical abuse. Reading about this family who love each other and won't let one of the daughters/sister disappear with a man that they know can and will hurt her. It was lovely. 

Why They Watch Us Burn by Elizabeth May. You will cry. You will rage. This is a great short story that feels like it was written in response to the Women's March as well as kind of companion to "A Handmaid's Tale". Considering what is in the news cycle right now you will think that Elizabeth May has a damn crystal ball. Going into why men would want to lock these teen girls up and not allow them to live is soul shaking. That all of the girls are punished for using their real names and then whisper them to each other at night. 

“Here’s how to fulfill a prophecy: you are a woman, you speak the truth, and the world makes you into a liar.”

This was fun and I grinned a lot while reading, but nothing laughing out loud as my feeble minded, tiny head would never be able to grasp it all.

On a more serious note: this booklet, it is too short to actually call it a book, makes fun of sexism by explaining historical visions on women from people nowadays considered geniuses. The sad part is of course, that while it is immediately clear now that these are all rubbish, they have held back generations, centuries even, of women.

A short read, but nice.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

This is so hilariously sarcastic and spot-on that I forgot for a while how sad this book really is.



















*****

***Copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.***

Disclaimer: ARC via Netgalley.  I should also note that I read this via Adobe Digital Editions, and for some reason each page took quite a bit of time of load.  This no doubt explains some of my frustration.

                On the one hand, this is a funny book about why women get written out of history.  On the other hand, it is a joke that goes on for too long.  I don’t usually say this, but if this book had been saying half its length, it would have been funnier. 

                Fleming's tongue in cheek look at how men and society viewed women and why women were considered less than human is rather funny.  This is true at the beginning of the book, and when she references famous figures, such as Darwin.  However, in some ways once the joke has happened, there is really no reason to use it again.  But it gets used again.  At times the book is brilliant – in particular when Fleming is referencing a woman such as Phillis Wheatley and the reaction of male (and white) society to her.  More than once I found myself wishing this had been done more often.  There is plenty of material to find the stories of such woman, the work of Vicki Leon being only one starting place.

                Still, I am glad I read this.  It is worth reading even if the humor wears a little thin.  The dust bin illustrations are worth the time it takes to read.

So I finished the Evans as well as the Netgalley graphic novel, Hoofprints, and two short books.  I also made my way though most of Gentlemen and Players.  Additionally, I read the NYT pretty cover to cover or page to page.

That was fun.