Good morning, all! I'm happy to be part of the TLC book tour for Lucy Wood's Diving Belles today!This is a bit of an atypical review in that it's a short story collection rather than a novel, so I'll skip my usual synopsis if that's ok with you.
Wood's debut short story collection features tales with a decidedly folkorish tone. In the title story (my favorite by far) a new company offers wives the opportunity to dive down and retrieve their husbands from mermaids. In another story, a woman slowly transforms into a rock. And in yet another, a daughter discovers her mother is not alone at all since her husband left, but has a companion only she can see.
Each of the stories is magical and strange indeed. Wood's style is lyrical and her imagery is amazing, but I did find that I struggled a bit as the book progressed -- I felt as though some of the stories spiraled into nonsense!
I'm also not a huge fan of open ended stories. A few I can handle fine, but I found that the majority of Wood's stories had no real conclusion. I know this is a matter of personal taste and it may very well be one of the things some readers enjoy most about the collection.
I am generally a huge fan of short stories and most definitely encourage readers to dive into a great collection as often as they possibly can. If you're a fan of fairy tales and folklore, Diving Belles should most definitely be on your radar. Give it a try, you may find it's right up your alley in spite of my own complaints. I have to admit that the book first came on my radar thanks to a UK blogger I follow. She absolutely raved about the collection and had none of the issues I did with the book.
For more stops on the tour, visit the official TLC tour page here.
4 comments:
I felt the same way about some of the endings. It's like she didn't know how to end them. I did like quite a few of them though.
The title story was one of my favourites as well; I felt as though I was right down there with her. (Not exactly a comfortable position, but, still!)
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this collection for the tour.
The title story was fantastic! I agree, @Buried, I felt like I was right there as well. I had no trouble imagining it.
I loved the feel of the stories overall, @chrisbookarama.
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