Amelia Gray's Museum Of The Weird (2010) - Plot & Excerpts
The biggest detriment to any overall short story collection is often that the stories are, more or less, highly similar to each other in many ways - style, tone, themes, etc. For a good collection, this is perfect, since you're guaranteed to like most, if not all the stories. For a bad collection, this is terrible, since you're guaranteed to hate pretty much all the stories.Amelia Gray manages to defy expectations in Museum of the Weird by never dwelling in any one style or tone, jumping around formats and voices confidently and without apology. In one story, a man tries to gain the romantic attention of a too-adventurous chef. In another, we see the off-kilter plans for a SNAKE FARM. Surreal at one moment, hilarious at the next, and more often than not combining the two with entertaining results, Gray builds a collection of stories that has you jumping from one tale to the next, if only to see where else she can go. Some of her attempts aren't perfect, but seeing as how most of these stories are 5-7 pages long, it doesn't take long to come back to a gem. It's a quick read, but you won't tire of reading about Reagan's boyhood home, or a penguin's insistence that he fought "the fucking darkness." Highly recommended. OK, I didn't actually finish it.There was one interesting story in there called Dinner, but the rest felt like punishment. Worse: the whole thing felt like a big, sarcastic joke that everyone was in on except for me. I got sick of that, eventually. I think this is the second book that I've ever thrown away (the first was the entire Wizard's First Rule trilogy, which I accidentally bought not realizing what it was.) Ahh well. Anyway, I do believe there are many people who will understand this stuff, and love it, and eat it up. Bon appetit.
What do You think about Amelia Gray's Museum Of The Weird (2010)?
This book was quirky and so not full of itself and I loved it for that.
—prince
