Orange World and Other Stories

This is a collection of magical realism tales, many of them dark or outright horror (the title story has body horror elements), all of them somewhat unsettling with the protagonist in some degree of danger. It feels as though the author has incorporated more recent experiences of her life as a mother into her imagined universes. Of the eight stories I most liked The Bad Graft, Bog Girl: A romance, The Gondoliers, and Orange World the best for the way I could immerse myself in the story, but I did often feel as though I had to work at the reading to get something out. The style isn't totally bleak with humorous elements tossed in to lighten the mood Like the other collection of hers I read, Vampires in the Lemon Grove, the settings are widely varied, though I can sense a kind of character trait in common among the protagonists in the form of a dogged persistence in the face of a difficult challenge. The premise of each story is presented without any sense that the characters consider things to be absurd. For the best stories I felt like the endings were the best part when things came together in the mind of the main character.