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Stories and Other Revenges
by Amber Sparks
Feminism fuels fantasy in this genre-busting collection by "master of the fantastic" (Roxane Gay) Amber Sparks.
Exciting fans of such writers as Kelly Link, Karen Russell, and Carmen Maria Machado with prose that shimmers and stings, Amber Sparks holds a singular role in the canon of the weird. Now, she reaches new, uncanny heights with And I Do Not Forgive You. In "Mildly Happy, With Moments of Joy," a friend is ghosted by a simple text message; in "Everyone's a Winner at Meadow Park," a teen precariously coming of age in a trailer park befriends an actual ghost. At once humorous and unapologetically fierce, these stories shine an interrogating light on the adage that "history likes to lie about women"― as the subjects of "A Short and Speculative History of Lavoisier's Wife" and "You Won't Believe What Really Happened to the Sabine Women" (it's true, you won't) will attest.
Blending fairy tales and myths with apocalyptic technologies, all tethered intricately by shades of rage, And I Do Not Forgive You offers a mosaic of an all-too-real world that fails to listen to its silenced goddesses.
"[An] exceptional collection of wry, feminist stories...Sparks's sardonic wit never distracts from her polished dismantling of everyday and extraordinary abuses. Readers will love this remarkable, deliciously caustic collection." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Although there is anger and rage in these stories, Sparks suffuses them with zingy humor at every opportunity. At their best, they balance heartbreak and wit. The pieces that don't land are the ones where that wit grows cartoonish...A collection with a goth heart beating beneath a cheerleader's peppy exterior." - Kirkus Reviews
"Each story is vivid, unexpected, and satisfyingly weird. Darkly comic and whip-smart, this collection is recommended for readers of Aimee Bender and Alexandra Kleeman." - Library Journal
"Sparks' imagination seems limitless, her approaches to style and form without boundaries...At once timely, wickedly funny, and uncomfortably real, Sparks' singular stories have the power to shake us wide awake and shatter every last happily-ever-after illusion." - Booklist
"What joyful play and heart and movement in these stories, full of permission and the thrum of ideas bursting and growing on the page. To read one is like a bon-bon on a silver platter with a lit sparkler stuck inside." - Aimee Bender, author of The Color Master
"Amber Sparks' stories are, precisely, like her name: precious things delivered in a burst of fire and light." - Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body & Other Parties
"Re-appropriating fairy tales, urban legends, and supernatural fantasies, Amber Sparks' startling kaleidoscopic visions re-cast familiar heroines in their own stories. Reading this was a delight!" - Ling Ma, author of Severance
This information about And I Do Not Forgive You was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Amber Sparks is the author of a previous collection, May We Shed These Human Bodies, and her fiction has appeared in American Short Fiction, The Collagist, and elsewhere. She lives in Washington, DC.
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