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A review by lezreadalot
Portland Diary: Short Stories 2016/2017 by Jamie Berrout
3.0
"More, more, always there is more."
I enjoyed this collection of short stories a lot! They were all very powerful and immersive, stories of trans women of colour clawing back at a world that bites. There was contemporary, there was science fiction, there was dystopia, there was romance (a lot of which made my lil lesbian heart sing).
The root of my, idk dissatisfaction, for a lack of a better word, with this collection is that fact that so many of the stories felt unfinished. All of them in a way. You can tell that a lot of heart and thought went into all of them, but not all of it came out on the page. A lot of them ended super abruptly and left me wanting to know more. Will anything actually change within the HRC? Are Magaly and Julieta going to be okay? Tell me more about Alejandra! I know that leaving things unsaid/to the imagination/up to the reader is quite the point in a lot of stories, but I don't know. It didn't work for me here. The stories read as being very polished, just not finished. When we did get information, there was a lot more exposition than I'd have liked. Some passages were honestly so pretty to read, especially some of the early parts of "Subject". Then other times I felt like information was just being dumped on my head; passages of history or background info all at once.
Caveats aside, I liked this collection a lot. Favourite story hands down was "Waiting Room". I'm always a slut for narratives about AI, and human/robot relationships. I loved the world building, the the notion of AI retirement, and all the ways Carmen saw herself in Caityln. I'd happily read a novella based on any of these stories, but especially this one.
Overall enjoyable, very much worth the read. 3.5 stars.
I enjoyed this collection of short stories a lot! They were all very powerful and immersive, stories of trans women of colour clawing back at a world that bites. There was contemporary, there was science fiction, there was dystopia, there was romance (a lot of which made my lil lesbian heart sing).
The root of my, idk dissatisfaction, for a lack of a better word, with this collection is that fact that so many of the stories felt unfinished. All of them in a way. You can tell that a lot of heart and thought went into all of them, but not all of it came out on the page. A lot of them ended super abruptly and left me wanting to know more. Will anything actually change within the HRC? Are Magaly and Julieta going to be okay? Tell me more about Alejandra! I know that leaving things unsaid/to the imagination/up to the reader is quite the point in a lot of stories, but I don't know. It didn't work for me here. The stories read as being very polished, just not finished. When we did get information, there was a lot more exposition than I'd have liked. Some passages were honestly so pretty to read, especially some of the early parts of "Subject". Then other times I felt like information was just being dumped on my head; passages of history or background info all at once.
Caveats aside, I liked this collection a lot. Favourite story hands down was "Waiting Room". I'm always a slut for narratives about AI, and human/robot relationships. I loved the world building, the the notion of AI retirement, and all the ways Carmen saw herself in Caityln. I'd happily read a novella based on any of these stories, but especially this one.
Overall enjoyable, very much worth the read. 3.5 stars.