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A review by booknerd7820
The Best of Catherynne M. Valente, Volume One by Catherynne M. Valente
3.0
As a huge Catherynne M. Valente fan, I was thrilled to be able to read this compendium with many of her works that I had previously not had the opportunity to read. Unfortunately, at 800 pages this anthology felt like a slog to get through. It would have been better to release it in half the size, especially due to Valente’s unique and highly descriptive writing style.
The stories themselves are exquisite, favorites including The Difference Between Love and Time, Reading Borges in Buenos Aires, The Future is Blue, and Daisy Green Says I Love You. However, however for every amazing short story, I felt like there were two or three filler stories that just seemed like unformed ideas or scenarios.
One other issue I had with my digital ARC through NetGalley was the formatting. Although no fault of the author, it did make reading a bit of a challenge and words and sentences seemed to form run on paragraphs with no natural breaks. There were even a few times that I had not realized that I was reading a completely different short story from the previous one.
Overall, a must for die hard Valente fans, but I fear the sheer size and breadth of her works in this anthology will deter any new readers from discovering her novels like The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making and Space Opera, two books that any sci-fi fantasy fan should most definitely read.
Thank you to NetGalley, Subterranean Press, and Catherynne M. Valente for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.
The stories themselves are exquisite, favorites including The Difference Between Love and Time, Reading Borges in Buenos Aires, The Future is Blue, and Daisy Green Says I Love You. However, however for every amazing short story, I felt like there were two or three filler stories that just seemed like unformed ideas or scenarios.
One other issue I had with my digital ARC through NetGalley was the formatting. Although no fault of the author, it did make reading a bit of a challenge and words and sentences seemed to form run on paragraphs with no natural breaks. There were even a few times that I had not realized that I was reading a completely different short story from the previous one.
Overall, a must for die hard Valente fans, but I fear the sheer size and breadth of her works in this anthology will deter any new readers from discovering her novels like The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making and Space Opera, two books that any sci-fi fantasy fan should most definitely read.
Thank you to NetGalley, Subterranean Press, and Catherynne M. Valente for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.