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Tragedy Queens: Stories Inspired by Lana Del Rey and Sylvia Plath [Review]

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Had no idea what to expect from this collection of short fiction, mostly I picked it up because I happen to like Lana Del Rey and Sylvia Plath and the idea of an anthology full of stories inspired by them intrigued me.  That and the book has an awesomely cartoonish eye-catching cover. Laugh if you will at the concept of this book, call it chick lit or whatever you want to call it, but I challenge you to laugh after you actually read it.

The book works as well as it does to a large part due to the talents of the editor, Leza Cantoral, who is an accomplished author herself (Cartoons in the Suicide Forest)  as well as the head honcho of Clash Books. The stories stack upon each other, each one adding a layer of experience from the one before and they all flow towards the inevitable end of the ride.

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You get twenty-four stories by the same number of all female authors and there isn’t a weak one in the collection.  All the stories are very different, in some the theme of the collection can be very clearly seen and in others it is more hinted at.  They run the gamut in style, length, and genre. There is everything from stylized noir to bizarro and back again. There are ghost stories and other kinds of more subtle hauntings covering the universal themes of life, passion, Gods and Monsters,sex, death and what it means to be an artist of any kind in our world.

I won’t do a detailed breakdown of each story but I will mention a few that were standouts for me.

The Black List by Kathryn Louise- a very satisfying noirish revenge story.

Crazy Mary by Patricia Grisafi- the slow deterioration of a young students mind while traveling abroad.

Because of their Different Deaths by  Stephanie Wytovich-Perfect tale to end the collection with.

The Lazarus Wife by Tiffany Morris- A different sort of ghost story.

All in all a very solid collection full of beautiful lyrical writing from some extremely talented authors all of whom I want to read more work from.

Toss this book in your bag as you head out to get high by the beach this summer.

I give this anthology a full five bananas.

Discover Tragedy Queens: Stories Inspired by Lana Del Rey and Sylvia Plath now from Amazon!

 

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