A review by fe_lea
Peach Pit by Kristel Emma Buckley, Molly Llewellyn

dark emotional sad
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

 She was drawn to these books - girls with powers, girls who were monstrous, girls who had the potential to be terrible and violent things.

Peach Pit is a collection of 16 stories of unsavory women written by BIPOC and queer authors. When the cover said unsavory, it really meant unsavory. It has murderers, con-artists, arsonists, even women who are not afraid of destroying other women to advance their ambition. 

Earlier, I read Unlikeable Female Characters by Anna Bogutskaya and the character archetypes that she mentioned there are exactly these women in the stories. Bogutskaya also highlighted how these unlikeable characters are more often than not given to white women, as if white girl anger and white girl tears are more acceptable over a brown girl’s. With a focus on queer and women of color, Peach Pit tells the stories of conniving, despicable, vengeful, mean, messy women that can make you uncomfortable. 

“It was devastating. It was beautiful.” 

Seeing K-Ming Chang as one of the authors drew me to the book and now I have a few more authors whose works I need to check out. As with most short story collections, not everything worked for me. Some of the stories in the second half fell a little flat. The first three stories were my favorite. Fuckboy Museum by Deesha Philyaw was a perfect opener and set the tone for what’s to come. I loved how the story slowly unravelled as the woman recounts her tale of dating fuckboys after her divorce. The second story is Caller by K-Ming Chang. Honestly, this one left me kind of confused but I couldn’t help but be hypnotized by her prose. The third one is All you have is your fire by Yah Yah Scholfield and I loved the portrayal of young female rage in this one. 

Reading this was also a trip. In one story I was grossed out by the pedophilia and incest and speechless at the intensity of the story and the next I was left confused if the woman the narrator is singing praises about was an actual water bottle or a metaphor for something, I’m still not sure what that one was. 

While some stories weren’t for me, I still think this was a solid collection. 
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