Two Moons: Stories by Krystal A. SmithMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
To call these stories is really stretching it. They are more like tidbits of a short story or a book blurb. This is really the number one reason why this book is only 3 stars for me. It's not that the writing is poor, or even the story ideas weak, all that is well done by Krystal A. Smith; but the shortness of each story makes me feel like I'm reading tweets about story ideas. Far too short for my liking.
Two Moons
The best story by far gives this compilation book it's name. Two Moons is a superb romantic story about the moon and an earth gal who fall in love. I adored the uniqueness of this and that the context pops up in a few other stories along the way. As the second book in the collection it's disappointing to realize that it was the best.
Representation
I think in every instance in this story it is a F/F relationship or a F/entity relationship. That may sound weird but I'm not sure what to call the moon or someone's heart (yes the heart as a conscious mind), or stars. So let's just say entity. These are actually the stories I loved the most. Not because I didn't enjoy the F/F stories but just because they were very, very unique.
Certainly if you want some super quick reads with some LGBTQ+ representation you will find a few here.
What did make me smile was when I realized that by putting in these entities as romantic partners or interests it could serve to normalize the lesbian or trans relationship stories for those that find them uncomfortable! If this is intentional or not I don't know; but I'd like to think it is because it's a clever way of changing perspective enough that someone might suddenly have an ah-ha moment.
Overall
I'd love to see a full short story or novel about our human girl and the moon. I'd also love to see the odd star story (last one) carried forward or given more context. I think there is a great short story there it just needs some substance and context.
While I think Krystal A. Smith has something here, not a one of the stories included has enough to it to really be outstanding. And none of them are long enough to really remain in mind for very long.
Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.
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1 comment:
Writing good short stories is hard...I find most people either make them too long (so you end up with a novella, or worse, what should have been a full novel and is still missing something) or these weird, summary-like things, streams of consciousness or whatever else there is that doesn't give you a real story to emerge yourself in. Maybe some of these stories will *really* see the light of day some time?
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