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St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
In these ten glittering short stories, debut author Karen Russell takes us to the ghostly and magical swamps of the Florida Everglades. Here, wolf-like girls are reformed by nuns; a family makes its living wrestling alligators in a theme park; and little girls sail away on crab shells. Filled with stunning inventiveness and heart, St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves introduces a radiant new writer.
246 pages, Hardcover
First published June 6, 2005
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22752 people want to read
About the author
Karen Russell
57books3,171followersKaren Russell graduated from Columbia University's MFA program in 2006. Her stories have been featured in The Best American Short Stories, Conjunctions, Granta, The New Yorker, Oxford American, and Zoetrope. Her first book of short stories, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, was published in September 2006. In November 2009, she was named a National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" honoree. In June 2010, she was named a New Yorker "20 Under 40" honoree. Her first novel, Swamplandia!, was published in February 2011.
She lives in Washington Heights, New York.
She lives in Washington Heights, New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,940 reviews
October 20, 2019
first of all - greg- i lied to you. i told you that the conch shell story (the city of shells) was my favorite because i felt put on the spot and distracted, and that was the first one i thought of. but my real favorite story is the one on the boated retirement community (out to sea). god - i felt that one in my desiccated old heart-sac.
i really enjoyed this collection. the stories all contain wavery bits of the surreal - her style reminds me more of kelly link than george saunders, which comparison greggers made. there is always something prickly about george saunders - something almost aggressive and mocking. these are more dreamy and even the unpleasant parts feel safe, like waking up could make the problems go away for the characters.
the only story i was not crazy about was the one with the minotaur (from children's reminiscences of the westward migration). in fact, i mentioned this to greg, and he said "man, i am so sick of minotaurs". so - authors take note. greg is over the minotaur.
russell is a very confident writer. she doesn't take the easy way out, but she also doesn't go for the "unexpected" scenes that arrive unsupported by the rest of the story. and she sure does like the word "limn!"
the collection is teasingly connected, like millhauser's enchanted night: all the stories take place in the same island community in the florida everglades, where marvelous and magical things happen: girls take ghost lovers, or have werewolf parents, boys spy on secret adult rituals at the ice skating rink (complete with skating baboons), or have vivid dreams of atrocities of the past. characters will occasionally pop up in other stories, but only in whispers or offhand remarks, just to see if you are paying attention.
she has a real delicacy to her prose, and even when her stories are unresolved, frustratingly so, i don't feel it is because she didn't know how to end it, but that she chose her ambiguity with a shrug and a wink.
i am glad she is the current darling of the young literary scene; i wish her the best and am very excited to see how her new full-length piece compares to this. thumbs up, karen russell, and great name!!
i really enjoyed this collection. the stories all contain wavery bits of the surreal - her style reminds me more of kelly link than george saunders, which comparison greggers made. there is always something prickly about george saunders - something almost aggressive and mocking. these are more dreamy and even the unpleasant parts feel safe, like waking up could make the problems go away for the characters.
the only story i was not crazy about was the one with the minotaur (from children's reminiscences of the westward migration). in fact, i mentioned this to greg, and he said "man, i am so sick of minotaurs". so - authors take note. greg is over the minotaur.
russell is a very confident writer. she doesn't take the easy way out, but she also doesn't go for the "unexpected" scenes that arrive unsupported by the rest of the story. and she sure does like the word "limn!"
the collection is teasingly connected, like millhauser's enchanted night: all the stories take place in the same island community in the florida everglades, where marvelous and magical things happen: girls take ghost lovers, or have werewolf parents, boys spy on secret adult rituals at the ice skating rink (complete with skating baboons), or have vivid dreams of atrocities of the past. characters will occasionally pop up in other stories, but only in whispers or offhand remarks, just to see if you are paying attention.
she has a real delicacy to her prose, and even when her stories are unresolved, frustratingly so, i don't feel it is because she didn't know how to end it, but that she chose her ambiguity with a shrug and a wink.
i am glad she is the current darling of the young literary scene; i wish her the best and am very excited to see how her new full-length piece compares to this. thumbs up, karen russell, and great name!!
April 17, 2008
Honestly, I just can't read this anymore. There were two stories left, but I had to put it down.
Individually, the stories in this volume are highly creative, heartbreaking and imaginative, but taken as a volume, the sheer similarities between all of the tales made me want to pull my hair out. Russell is obviously very talented, but I'd love to read something that isn't told from an overly precocious child's point of view, that doesn't end in medias res, and that doesn't involve strangely allegorical elements.
Individually, the stories in this volume are highly creative, heartbreaking and imaginative, but taken as a volume, the sheer similarities between all of the tales made me want to pull my hair out. Russell is obviously very talented, but I'd love to read something that isn't told from an overly precocious child's point of view, that doesn't end in medias res, and that doesn't involve strangely allegorical elements.
September 5, 2016
Posted at
is an unusual collection of imaginative, quirky, moving, unsettling, and stylishly written stories featuring troubled children as they learn, grow, and make their way in the world. Their parents are flawed and dealing with their own issues as well, like the minotaur who moves his human family out west for a fresh start. While I enjoyed the majority of stories in this collection, I found they suffered from sameness and repetition, which is why this book took me over a month to read.
One of my favorites in this collection was the title story, about a group of girls raised by wolves sent to a school to be educated and civilized by nuns.
“”Lick your own wounds,� I said, not unkindly. It was what the nuns had instructed us to say; wound licking was not something you did in polite company. Etiquette was so confounding in this country. Still, looking at Mirabella � her fists balled together like small, white porcupines, her brows knitted in animal confusion � I felt a throb of compassion. How can people live like they do? I wondered.�
I also enjoyed Out to Sea, about a group of retirees living in houseboats that are volunteered to pair up with at-risk youths completing their court-ordered community service.
“Like most of the residents of the of the Out-to-Sea Retirement Community, Miss Markopoulos has spent decades hoarding a secret cache of love, shelved and putrefying in a quiet cupboard within her; and now, at the end of a life, she has no one to share it with.�
I would recommend this collection to readers who enjoy fantasy, magical realism, quirky characters, and coming-of-age stories.
June 30, 2024
Karen Russell has captured the mucky, mystical feeling of the Florida swamplands in St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, a collection of ten short stories told in the first-person by various child narrators. The precociousness of the narrators only enhances the magical feeling of these stories, which feature swamp-dwelling children who wrestle alligators, steal turtles, and sail on crab shells. The titular story tells of werewolf children who are reeducated by nuns to suppress their lupine instincts and function more normally in a human society. Just an average day in the Florida Everglades, I suppose?
My favorite story from this collection is "Z.Z.'s Sleep-Away Camp for Disordered Dreamers," a camp full of insomniac children who have formed their own social hierarchy as:
Cabin 2: Sleep Apneics
Cabin 3: Somnambulists
Cabin 6: Somniloquists
Cabin 8: Headbangers
Cabin 11: Night Eaters
Cabin 7: Gnashers
Cabin 13: Night Terrors
Cabin 9: Insomniacs
Cabin 1: Narcoleptics
Cabin 10: Incubuses
Cabin 5: Incontinents
I think the above list gives you a feel for the type of quirky humor that can be found in these highly imaginative stories, all of which are well-written in Karen Russell's unique "swampy" style. I would rate the individual stories anywhere from three to five stars, giving an overall rating of four stars for the collection as a whole.
Karen Russell has definitely grown as a writer in her later short story collections. My favorite is Vampires in the Lemon Grove, which is also a good entry point for reading her work.
My favorite story from this collection is "Z.Z.'s Sleep-Away Camp for Disordered Dreamers," a camp full of insomniac children who have formed their own social hierarchy as:
Cabin 2: Sleep Apneics
Cabin 3: Somnambulists
Cabin 6: Somniloquists
Cabin 8: Headbangers
Cabin 11: Night Eaters
Cabin 7: Gnashers
Cabin 13: Night Terrors
Cabin 9: Insomniacs
Cabin 1: Narcoleptics
Cabin 10: Incubuses
Cabin 5: Incontinents
I think the above list gives you a feel for the type of quirky humor that can be found in these highly imaginative stories, all of which are well-written in Karen Russell's unique "swampy" style. I would rate the individual stories anywhere from three to five stars, giving an overall rating of four stars for the collection as a whole.
Karen Russell has definitely grown as a writer in her later short story collections. My favorite is Vampires in the Lemon Grove, which is also a good entry point for reading her work.
October 29, 2012
I am very, very jealous of Karen Russell. She got to study creative writing at Columbia, she made New York Magazine list of twenty-five people to watch under the age of twenty six (and she was twenty-five when this book was published), and she also happens to be really, really talented. I bet she's really cool and her apartment is awesome and she has lots of great shoes.
St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (can I get that on a tshirt or something?) is a collection of short stories that mostly take place in the same island community in Florida. I hesitate to call the stories magical realism, because it doesn't seem like the correct description, but it's true that there's something magical at work in the world of these stories, and their world isn't the same as ours. In "Ava Wrestles the Alligator," a girl's sister is frequently possessed by her ghost boyfriend. "Z.Z.'s Sleep-Away Camp for Disordered Dreamers" is about a camp for, among other things, insomniacs, somnambulists, night terrors, incubuses, and Miscellaneous (our narrator is in this last category, and he has dreams that predict disasters that have already happened). "from Children's Reminiscences of the Western Migration" is a straightforward story of a pioneer family traveling in a wagon train, except the narrator's father is a Minotaur. In the title story, the human offspring of werewolves are rehabilitated into normal society and forced to shed their wolf characteristics.
Every single story is fascinating and mysterious and full of writing so beautiful it makes me want to cry, and the magical elements are presented in such a straightforward, simple way that you don't even question it and just let the prose wash over you, like this gorgeous passage from "Haunting Olivia":
"On the fifth night of our search, I see a plesiosaur. It is a megawatt behemoth, bronze and blue-white, streaking across the sea floor like a torpid comet. Watching it, I get this primordial deja vu, like I'm watching a dream return to my body. It wings towards me with a slow, avian grace. Its long neck is arched in an S-shaped curve; its lizard body is the size of Granana's carport. Each of its ghost flippers pinwheels colored light. I try to swim out of its path, but the thing's too big to avoid. That Leviathan fin, it shivers right through me. It's a light in my belly, cold and familiar. And I flash back to a snippet from school, a line from a poem or a science book, I can't remember which:
There are certain prehistoric things that swim beyond extinction."
But, general loveliness aside, this is ultimately an unsatisfying collection. Russel creates fantastic characters and scenarios, but she can't seem to find a good way to bring them to a close. The stories don't end, they just stop, usually without warning, and with nothing explained or learned or resolved. The only exception to this is the title story (which was also my favorite) because it's the only story in the entire collection that has a clear beginning, middle, and end. All the others, despite the skill with which they're put together, leave you with a distinctly deflated feeling.
Oddly, this is actually making me more interested in reading Russell's debut novel, (it's a continuation of the family of alligator wrestlers she created in "Ava Wrestles the Alligator"). I'll be interested to see what Russell does when she has the length of a novel to explore her characters' weird, fascinating worlds, and also what happens when an editor forces her to write a real ending.
St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (can I get that on a tshirt or something?) is a collection of short stories that mostly take place in the same island community in Florida. I hesitate to call the stories magical realism, because it doesn't seem like the correct description, but it's true that there's something magical at work in the world of these stories, and their world isn't the same as ours. In "Ava Wrestles the Alligator," a girl's sister is frequently possessed by her ghost boyfriend. "Z.Z.'s Sleep-Away Camp for Disordered Dreamers" is about a camp for, among other things, insomniacs, somnambulists, night terrors, incubuses, and Miscellaneous (our narrator is in this last category, and he has dreams that predict disasters that have already happened). "from Children's Reminiscences of the Western Migration" is a straightforward story of a pioneer family traveling in a wagon train, except the narrator's father is a Minotaur. In the title story, the human offspring of werewolves are rehabilitated into normal society and forced to shed their wolf characteristics.
Every single story is fascinating and mysterious and full of writing so beautiful it makes me want to cry, and the magical elements are presented in such a straightforward, simple way that you don't even question it and just let the prose wash over you, like this gorgeous passage from "Haunting Olivia":
"On the fifth night of our search, I see a plesiosaur. It is a megawatt behemoth, bronze and blue-white, streaking across the sea floor like a torpid comet. Watching it, I get this primordial deja vu, like I'm watching a dream return to my body. It wings towards me with a slow, avian grace. Its long neck is arched in an S-shaped curve; its lizard body is the size of Granana's carport. Each of its ghost flippers pinwheels colored light. I try to swim out of its path, but the thing's too big to avoid. That Leviathan fin, it shivers right through me. It's a light in my belly, cold and familiar. And I flash back to a snippet from school, a line from a poem or a science book, I can't remember which:
There are certain prehistoric things that swim beyond extinction."
But, general loveliness aside, this is ultimately an unsatisfying collection. Russel creates fantastic characters and scenarios, but she can't seem to find a good way to bring them to a close. The stories don't end, they just stop, usually without warning, and with nothing explained or learned or resolved. The only exception to this is the title story (which was also my favorite) because it's the only story in the entire collection that has a clear beginning, middle, and end. All the others, despite the skill with which they're put together, leave you with a distinctly deflated feeling.
Oddly, this is actually making me more interested in reading Russell's debut novel, (it's a continuation of the family of alligator wrestlers she created in "Ava Wrestles the Alligator"). I'll be interested to see what Russell does when she has the length of a novel to explore her characters' weird, fascinating worlds, and also what happens when an editor forces her to write a real ending.
May 17, 2025
Why is it I never had read Karen Russell’s St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (2005)?! Great title! And it is terrific, a story collection with irrealist or magical realism intent; there is real invention and effervescence and more great ideas in it than in a hundred books. Magic, grounded most often in the real world of growing up; could be a YA book. All the stories take place in the same island community in the Florida Everglades. Infused with lyrical prose and humor.
So many stories I loved. The title story is about girls raised by wolves who are now being “reformed� by nuns to enter the human world. I was reminded of schools in general meant to school the wild out of you. Stand in line, be quiet, do what you are told. Indigenous schools where the “Indian� is beaten out of indigenous kids. This is a feminist story, too, of course, since it is about girls raised to be domesticated. And, sadly, this process works for most of them. But not all of them!
“Ava Wrestles the Alligator� is the first in a series of stories that became Swampklandia (which I have yet to read), about the Bigtree Wrestling Dynasty—Grandpa Sawtooth, Chief Bigtree, and twelve-year-old Ava—proprietors of Swamplandia!
The opening story, “Haunting Olivia,� grabbed me right away. It’s about two young boys who make midnight trips to a boat graveyard in search of their dead sister. The last line took my breath away!
“ZZ’s Sleep-Away Camp for Disordered Dreamers� may not be the best story in the volume, but because my immediate family has a fascinating history of sleep issues, this is the one I found a pdf for and shared with the fam.
I hesitate to call these experiences disorders, as Russell would call it fascinating opportunities for amazing psychic and imaginative experiences. Okay, since you’re curious: We have had sleep talkers, sleep walkers, insomniacs, night terrors, lucid dreaming, those who see dead people, all of it (though not me, I’m not psychic, boring).
The camp has a series of cabins: Sleep apneacs, somnambulists, somniloquists, headbangers, night eaters, gnashers, night terrors, insomniacs, narcoleptics, incubuses, and incontinents, which is also a kind of ranked order of the social hierarchy--being teens, there has to be a social hierarchy.
Oh, and there’s one more category: Other, which the narrator of this story occupies. “That means we’re considered anomalies by Gnasher dudes who have ground their pearly whites down to nubbins, by Incubus girls who think that demon jockeys are riding them in their sleep.�
“At precisely 4:47, we woke up screaming, staring straight at one another. Oglivy’s hair was sticking straight up, his white eyes goggling out in the dark, the mirror image of my terror. Our screams gave way to giggles. ‘What did you dream?� he wheezed. ‘I dreamed,� I gasped, still laughing, “that there was this silver rocket, burning and burning.� He stopped laughing abruptly. ‘Me, too.� I was a prophet. Annie calls them my postmonitions.�
There’s an insomnia balloon you can go in. “This year, we’ve got a New Kid, this Eastern European lycanthrope.� There’s Felipe, a parasomniac with a coincidence of spirit possession.
The closing of “Sleepaway Camp�:
“Overhead, the glass envelope of the Insomnia Balloon is malfunctioning. It blinks on and off at arrhythmic intervals, making the world go gray:black, gray:black. In the distance, a knot of twisted trees slashes like cerebral circuitry.�
So many stories I loved. The title story is about girls raised by wolves who are now being “reformed� by nuns to enter the human world. I was reminded of schools in general meant to school the wild out of you. Stand in line, be quiet, do what you are told. Indigenous schools where the “Indian� is beaten out of indigenous kids. This is a feminist story, too, of course, since it is about girls raised to be domesticated. And, sadly, this process works for most of them. But not all of them!
“Ava Wrestles the Alligator� is the first in a series of stories that became Swampklandia (which I have yet to read), about the Bigtree Wrestling Dynasty—Grandpa Sawtooth, Chief Bigtree, and twelve-year-old Ava—proprietors of Swamplandia!
The opening story, “Haunting Olivia,� grabbed me right away. It’s about two young boys who make midnight trips to a boat graveyard in search of their dead sister. The last line took my breath away!
“ZZ’s Sleep-Away Camp for Disordered Dreamers� may not be the best story in the volume, but because my immediate family has a fascinating history of sleep issues, this is the one I found a pdf for and shared with the fam.
I hesitate to call these experiences disorders, as Russell would call it fascinating opportunities for amazing psychic and imaginative experiences. Okay, since you’re curious: We have had sleep talkers, sleep walkers, insomniacs, night terrors, lucid dreaming, those who see dead people, all of it (though not me, I’m not psychic, boring).
The camp has a series of cabins: Sleep apneacs, somnambulists, somniloquists, headbangers, night eaters, gnashers, night terrors, insomniacs, narcoleptics, incubuses, and incontinents, which is also a kind of ranked order of the social hierarchy--being teens, there has to be a social hierarchy.
Oh, and there’s one more category: Other, which the narrator of this story occupies. “That means we’re considered anomalies by Gnasher dudes who have ground their pearly whites down to nubbins, by Incubus girls who think that demon jockeys are riding them in their sleep.�
“At precisely 4:47, we woke up screaming, staring straight at one another. Oglivy’s hair was sticking straight up, his white eyes goggling out in the dark, the mirror image of my terror. Our screams gave way to giggles. ‘What did you dream?� he wheezed. ‘I dreamed,� I gasped, still laughing, “that there was this silver rocket, burning and burning.� He stopped laughing abruptly. ‘Me, too.� I was a prophet. Annie calls them my postmonitions.�
There’s an insomnia balloon you can go in. “This year, we’ve got a New Kid, this Eastern European lycanthrope.� There’s Felipe, a parasomniac with a coincidence of spirit possession.
The closing of “Sleepaway Camp�:
“Overhead, the glass envelope of the Insomnia Balloon is malfunctioning. It blinks on and off at arrhythmic intervals, making the world go gray:black, gray:black. In the distance, a knot of twisted trees slashes like cerebral circuitry.�
February 9, 2011
This collection of short stories was quite good.
I'm awful at writing reviews for short story collections, mostly because I'm too lazy or forgetful to jot down notes about the individual stories when I finish them, so the entire collection sort of becomes jumbled up in my head. These kind of fall into the George Saunders like style of writing, weird slightly off-kilter distortions of the real world, but unlike some of the George Saunders-esque writers out there is never the feeling that Karen Russell is trying to be weird for weird's sake. I think some of this has to do with her really great use of voice for the characters and the development of the characters. It would seem to me to be really easy when writing stories like this to get all caught up in the strange setting and then just hoping that the setting and plot will make for an interesting story.
In quite a few of the stories she writes really convincingly as a teenage boy, actually so convincingly that about half way through the book I started to assume that most of the first person narrators would be boys, until proven otherwise, this is something that I don't think I normally do with stories written by women. I know that Lit Crit 101 tells you not to, but in this day and age, especially with young writers (damn her for being so much younger than me) first person is usually a giant flag of hey this is sort of me the author airing myself out for you all to see but with enough of an ironical wink and nudge to put a little bit of fictional narrative distance between myself and the story.
Another aspect of the stories I found myself enjoying was the would sometimes border on being perverse or shocking but never actually cross the line. This created a nice creepy undercurrent to some of the stories, which would have been destroyed if she had allowed herself to write more explicitly. This also kind of helped add to the unknown that floats around us as children (since many of the narrators are children), where there are things that you have the feeling are not quite right or 'dirty' but unable to really fill in the pieces (does that make sense to anyone else but me?). Again this is a very good thing, and her being a young writer it's nice to see that she just take the relatively easy way of being shocking because she can.
I'm looking forward to reading her novel, which sounds like it's an expansion on this collections first story.
I'm awful at writing reviews for short story collections, mostly because I'm too lazy or forgetful to jot down notes about the individual stories when I finish them, so the entire collection sort of becomes jumbled up in my head. These kind of fall into the George Saunders like style of writing, weird slightly off-kilter distortions of the real world, but unlike some of the George Saunders-esque writers out there is never the feeling that Karen Russell is trying to be weird for weird's sake. I think some of this has to do with her really great use of voice for the characters and the development of the characters. It would seem to me to be really easy when writing stories like this to get all caught up in the strange setting and then just hoping that the setting and plot will make for an interesting story.
In quite a few of the stories she writes really convincingly as a teenage boy, actually so convincingly that about half way through the book I started to assume that most of the first person narrators would be boys, until proven otherwise, this is something that I don't think I normally do with stories written by women. I know that Lit Crit 101 tells you not to, but in this day and age, especially with young writers (damn her for being so much younger than me) first person is usually a giant flag of hey this is sort of me the author airing myself out for you all to see but with enough of an ironical wink and nudge to put a little bit of fictional narrative distance between myself and the story.
Another aspect of the stories I found myself enjoying was the would sometimes border on being perverse or shocking but never actually cross the line. This created a nice creepy undercurrent to some of the stories, which would have been destroyed if she had allowed herself to write more explicitly. This also kind of helped add to the unknown that floats around us as children (since many of the narrators are children), where there are things that you have the feeling are not quite right or 'dirty' but unable to really fill in the pieces (does that make sense to anyone else but me?). Again this is a very good thing, and her being a young writer it's nice to see that she just take the relatively easy way of being shocking because she can.
I'm looking forward to reading her novel, which sounds like it's an expansion on this collections first story.
February 23, 2009
These stories are wonderfully creative, beautifully written, and make me very jealous of Karen Russell in general. So why the low rating? Because almost every single one of the stories ended too soon! I don't mean "ended sooner than I would have liked, and I'm sad that I can't stay with it longer" - well, that's actually true as well. But I mean "ended right as things were getting interesting, leaving everything not just unresolved but in fact disappointing and bewildering, since there was no resolution at all which after the first few stories just gets increasingly frustrating". At the end of the story, the protagonists are still trapped, or just starting to enter the cave, or are only halfway through their journey, etc. If these were individual stories, the dangling endings wouldn't be so intolerable, but after the fifth or sixth story in a row, it's really difficult to keep reading.
April 29, 2014
A pack of feral half-wolf girls raised by nuns in a foster home, a brother diving to find his little sister in a haunted cave, a family of minotaurs moving westward, two young girls living and growing up among alligators at an amusement park - all this and more awaits you in Karen Russell's debut collection of stories, published when she was just 25.
I have a bit of a crush on Karen Russell. Her stories are great - she has the rare combination of both imagination and talent, allowing her to creatively turn even the wildest ideas into entertaining and endearing stories, with people (or creatures) that we can care about. Her language flows briskly and easily, with a careful balance between elegance and vernacular that I envy her a bit.
Most of the stories in this collection are set in Russel's native southern Florida, its many swamps and islands along the coasts of the Everglades. This is a setting which is naturally magical and full of the unexplored possibility of the tropical wilderness, ideal for these quirky and off-beat tales.But the collection, good as it is, is not without its flaws - it is, after all, a debut, and some rougher edges escaped the final polish. Although each story features a different protagonist and most are narrated in the first person, there is a lack of a different voice for each of them - the absence of narrative distinction makes all character morph into one and sound like the author's vision of them.
The second biggest complaint, which for many readers can be a dealbreaker, are the non-endings: most of the stories in the collection simply end without a resolution, in medias res. It's particularly visible in stories such as Out to Sea, which is one of the few that don't feature any surreal elements at all. Out to Sea is the story of Sawtooth, a grumpy old man slowly turning to rust in a Florida home for the elderly, and Augie - a much younger girl who visits him as a part of her court sentence, and with whom he slowly became obsessed. Sawtooth ignores that the girl obviously doesn't care for him, steals his pills, and only hangs around because she has a 50-hour sentence to serve. In just a few pages we see an unlikely (but moving) transformation, as for probably the first time in his life Sawtooth begins to feel something for another human being, and we want to see what will happen - and then it just ends, without a real resolution or the characters learning anything. I know that it's difficult to include any real polemic on the whole range of human emotions, but come on! Such a wasted opportunity.
I'm happy to say that Karen's second collection, Vampires in the Lemon Grove is a definite improvement and a brilliant volume full of self-contained little gems. And that's the one I'd recommend - I think that readers seeking imaginative and creative fiction should read Karen Russel. She's great! I'm looking forward to reading her novel, , and eagerly await her future stories.
I have a bit of a crush on Karen Russell. Her stories are great - she has the rare combination of both imagination and talent, allowing her to creatively turn even the wildest ideas into entertaining and endearing stories, with people (or creatures) that we can care about. Her language flows briskly and easily, with a careful balance between elegance and vernacular that I envy her a bit.
Most of the stories in this collection are set in Russel's native southern Florida, its many swamps and islands along the coasts of the Everglades. This is a setting which is naturally magical and full of the unexplored possibility of the tropical wilderness, ideal for these quirky and off-beat tales.But the collection, good as it is, is not without its flaws - it is, after all, a debut, and some rougher edges escaped the final polish. Although each story features a different protagonist and most are narrated in the first person, there is a lack of a different voice for each of them - the absence of narrative distinction makes all character morph into one and sound like the author's vision of them.
The second biggest complaint, which for many readers can be a dealbreaker, are the non-endings: most of the stories in the collection simply end without a resolution, in medias res. It's particularly visible in stories such as Out to Sea, which is one of the few that don't feature any surreal elements at all. Out to Sea is the story of Sawtooth, a grumpy old man slowly turning to rust in a Florida home for the elderly, and Augie - a much younger girl who visits him as a part of her court sentence, and with whom he slowly became obsessed. Sawtooth ignores that the girl obviously doesn't care for him, steals his pills, and only hangs around because she has a 50-hour sentence to serve. In just a few pages we see an unlikely (but moving) transformation, as for probably the first time in his life Sawtooth begins to feel something for another human being, and we want to see what will happen - and then it just ends, without a real resolution or the characters learning anything. I know that it's difficult to include any real polemic on the whole range of human emotions, but come on! Such a wasted opportunity.
I'm happy to say that Karen's second collection, Vampires in the Lemon Grove is a definite improvement and a brilliant volume full of self-contained little gems. And that's the one I'd recommend - I think that readers seeking imaginative and creative fiction should read Karen Russel. She's great! I'm looking forward to reading her novel, , and eagerly await her future stories.
November 15, 2010
First of all, Karen Russell wins the award for best story titles, hands down: Ava Wrestles the Alligator, ZZ's Sleep-Away Camp for Disordered Dreamers, the title story, etc. The prose crackles. Several of the stories take place on a very strange and well-imagined island full of Bizarroland tourist attractions, perhaps off of Florida. She skims the waters of magic realism with the tips of her wings; the titles and the stories are packed with dream imagery. All of which is stuff I love.
Why, then, the three star rating rather than the four? Russell's use of language is often gorgeous, but at the same time it leaves me cold. I resorted to reading one story a day so that the beautiful sameness didn't become grating. It takes me too long to figure out what makes these characters tick, and to figure out the strange rules and etiquette of the world in which they live. They all carry a reserve that makes it hard for me to feel for them, and the narrators' voices, too, have a sameness to them. Finally, I often have trouble figuring out where my own stories should end, so I hate to throw stones, but many of these stories feel incomplete. I know it's not necessarily wrong for a story to leave you saying "then what happened?" but many of these felt like interrupted dreams, the kind you wake from with that nagging feeling that there was a little more left to it, that it would all make sense if only you'd had five more minutes.
Why, then, the three star rating rather than the four? Russell's use of language is often gorgeous, but at the same time it leaves me cold. I resorted to reading one story a day so that the beautiful sameness didn't become grating. It takes me too long to figure out what makes these characters tick, and to figure out the strange rules and etiquette of the world in which they live. They all carry a reserve that makes it hard for me to feel for them, and the narrators' voices, too, have a sameness to them. Finally, I often have trouble figuring out where my own stories should end, so I hate to throw stones, but many of these stories feel incomplete. I know it's not necessarily wrong for a story to leave you saying "then what happened?" but many of these felt like interrupted dreams, the kind you wake from with that nagging feeling that there was a little more left to it, that it would all make sense if only you'd had five more minutes.
June 29, 2007
The only reason this isn't a 5-star is that I hate short stories. Sorry, but I do. It just doesn't make sense to me -- either they're little bits of fluff that are quickly forgotten, or they're involved and interesting, and there is no reason for them to end.
The stories in this book are an example of the latter case. These stories are terrific! has an incredible command of language (she uses the word 'limn' in almost every story), and a fascinating imagination. The stories are haunting, weird, beautiful, and endlessly creative. But each one could have made a fantastic novel! Why do they end? Why do all the work of conceptualizing a spookygreat world, filling it with multi-fasceted characters, making some crazy shit happen to them, all to just put it away after like 20 pages? Karen, I want more!!
The stories in this book are an example of the latter case. These stories are terrific! has an incredible command of language (she uses the word 'limn' in almost every story), and a fascinating imagination. The stories are haunting, weird, beautiful, and endlessly creative. But each one could have made a fantastic novel! Why do they end? Why do all the work of conceptualizing a spookygreat world, filling it with multi-fasceted characters, making some crazy shit happen to them, all to just put it away after like 20 pages? Karen, I want more!!
June 18, 2017
3.5/5. My favourite stories were: Z.Z.'s Sleep-Away Camp for Disordered Dreamers, Haunting Olivia & St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.
July 31, 2011
“The City of Shells closed to the visiting public over an hour ago. Now the boardwalk is deserted. Silent, except for the medleyed roar of the waves and the distant rumble of thunder. Gray, rain-bellied clouds are rolling in. Farther out, the sea is sluicing into night. There’s a hushed, tingly feeling in the air, as if the whole world is holding its breath. Only the silvery gulls dot the horizon. They peck at used condoms and empty Dorito bags with a salt-preened serenity.�
There are some authors that I know I will love upon reading only a few pages their writing. I can’t really explain this sense I get from some authors. It’s some way in which they write that I know that I will love them almost immediately. I like to call it positive vibes.
Karen Russell gives me the positive vibes. Perhaps it’s her love of language, or perhaps her insistence on ; but I’m hip to her style. I have a few deal-breakers and deal-makers when it comes to the books that I read. The mere fact that she muses and cites from the dictionary the word elope, was the deal-maker of a lifetime. I love that word. I don’t know why, maybe because it contains so much within it. One word tells the story of running away with true love. Sigh........
I apologize if I’m coming across as pretentious in this review, but I wanted to gush about Russell’s writing and why I like it so much.
And how delightfully quirky is! Every story reads like a more literate grown-up fairy tale. They all have an innocent charm and certain pre-teen naivete embedded within. I’m not saying these are young adult stories by any means, but the magical realism reminded me of the stories my parents used to tell me as a kid, or the stories I used to read in kindergarden. In other magical realistic writing there is a large amount of metaphor and symbolism within the bizarre occurrences. dodges these literary devices and go straight for the heart and the innocent romantic in all of us. Her writing is adolescent and childish but in the best way possible.
My biggest complaint reads as follows. Although each story features a different character and most of them are written in the first person, I didn't discern any significant difference in the voice or personalities. Although I fell in love with the single character she recasts in the stories, it left me wanting more. I wanted to see what more Russell is capable of. That translated to the plotting as well. Every ending was like a person who stops talking in the middle of his sentences; then you catch yourself leaning half-way over, slack-gawed waiting for the satisfaction you crave. It's too bad that almost every story left loose plot threads hanging. I understand how difficult it is to make an interesting and self-contained short story, but come on! One of my favorite stories, Out to Sea, had an non-ending. It was sad, unresolved and the characters didn't learn anything!
All qualms aside, I love Russell's writing. Her combination of literate writing and innocent entertainment is remarkable. I HIGHLY recommend reading !
I am approaching with certain trepidation. There are a plethora of negative reviews.
Prose style: 5
Plot: 3
Depth of characters: 3
Overall sense of aesthetic: 5
Originality: 5
Entertaining: 5
Emotional Reaction: 5
Intellectual Stimulation: 4
Social Relevance: 3
Writerly Inspiration: 5
Average = 4.3
There are some authors that I know I will love upon reading only a few pages their writing. I can’t really explain this sense I get from some authors. It’s some way in which they write that I know that I will love them almost immediately. I like to call it positive vibes.
Karen Russell gives me the positive vibes. Perhaps it’s her love of language, or perhaps her insistence on ; but I’m hip to her style. I have a few deal-breakers and deal-makers when it comes to the books that I read. The mere fact that she muses and cites from the dictionary the word elope, was the deal-maker of a lifetime. I love that word. I don’t know why, maybe because it contains so much within it. One word tells the story of running away with true love. Sigh........
I apologize if I’m coming across as pretentious in this review, but I wanted to gush about Russell’s writing and why I like it so much.
And how delightfully quirky is! Every story reads like a more literate grown-up fairy tale. They all have an innocent charm and certain pre-teen naivete embedded within. I’m not saying these are young adult stories by any means, but the magical realism reminded me of the stories my parents used to tell me as a kid, or the stories I used to read in kindergarden. In other magical realistic writing there is a large amount of metaphor and symbolism within the bizarre occurrences. dodges these literary devices and go straight for the heart and the innocent romantic in all of us. Her writing is adolescent and childish but in the best way possible.
My biggest complaint reads as follows. Although each story features a different character and most of them are written in the first person, I didn't discern any significant difference in the voice or personalities. Although I fell in love with the single character she recasts in the stories, it left me wanting more. I wanted to see what more Russell is capable of. That translated to the plotting as well. Every ending was like a person who stops talking in the middle of his sentences; then you catch yourself leaning half-way over, slack-gawed waiting for the satisfaction you crave. It's too bad that almost every story left loose plot threads hanging. I understand how difficult it is to make an interesting and self-contained short story, but come on! One of my favorite stories, Out to Sea, had an non-ending. It was sad, unresolved and the characters didn't learn anything!
All qualms aside, I love Russell's writing. Her combination of literate writing and innocent entertainment is remarkable. I HIGHLY recommend reading !
I am approaching with certain trepidation. There are a plethora of negative reviews.
Prose style: 5
Plot: 3
Depth of characters: 3
Overall sense of aesthetic: 5
Originality: 5
Entertaining: 5
Emotional Reaction: 5
Intellectual Stimulation: 4
Social Relevance: 3
Writerly Inspiration: 5
Average = 4.3
May 27, 2015
I can't rate this more than 3 stars - I expected to like it far more from the blurbs, but although the language is clever, the settings evocative and the ideas original, there was a lack of warmth in the writing. I found these pieces more like fragments from longer works than true short stories. In particular, the lack of resolution at the end of most of the stories left me dissatisfied. I felt storytelling took second place to literary cleverness. But try this collection for yourself - my response is partly down to personal taste. I do like my stories to have a satisfying overall shape, and even if the content is sad, grim or troubling, I like there to be a note of hope or learning at the end.
October 27, 2019
"Any place, then, can become a cemetery. All it takes is your body."
actual rating: 2.5
I did not like most of the stories in here, but that is about the rawest quote ever. Anyway, really the only stories that I liked were the first one [that unfortunately tricked me into committing to the whole collection] and then the last one [which is the title story]. Both of those were easily 4 star stories but all the others were 2 stars and kind of all over the place. Also I know that the title is just taken from one of the stories at random, but I guess I was expecting a collection of stories more focused on girls and women and I think that only the two stories I liked had female narrators/protagonists. There's nothing wrong with a male POV but I think I was just expecting something different because I heard about this book from another book that was about feminist horror and most of this was not really very women-oriented and also I wouldn't call any of it horror either. It wasn't totally awful but if you are unsure about this one I would recommend seeing if you can just track down the title story because it's definitely the best part.
actual rating: 2.5
I did not like most of the stories in here, but that is about the rawest quote ever. Anyway, really the only stories that I liked were the first one [that unfortunately tricked me into committing to the whole collection] and then the last one [which is the title story]. Both of those were easily 4 star stories but all the others were 2 stars and kind of all over the place. Also I know that the title is just taken from one of the stories at random, but I guess I was expecting a collection of stories more focused on girls and women and I think that only the two stories I liked had female narrators/protagonists. There's nothing wrong with a male POV but I think I was just expecting something different because I heard about this book from another book that was about feminist horror and most of this was not really very women-oriented and also I wouldn't call any of it horror either. It wasn't totally awful but if you are unsure about this one I would recommend seeing if you can just track down the title story because it's definitely the best part.
March 18, 2019
Someone recommended this to me a few years back, and I bought it soon thereafter at Borders, with a gift card I'd somehow acquired. I didn't bother to find out anything about the book before I bought it; if I had known it was a book of quirky, fantastical short stories told almost entirely from the point of view of children, I frankly would have stayed far away—that's like a definitive list of things I usually try to avoid in fiction. But Karen Russell has been getting a lot of attention lately, so I finally picked this up, and I was immediately drawn in. The writing is so excellent! And the stories are funny and touching and—how rare is this in modern short stories?�eventful. Even so, by the middle of the collection I'd OD'd on quirky stories told from the point of view of children, and had to take a break from this book. Fortunately, when I felt ready to return to it I enjoyed the second half just as much as the first. Really glad I read this; looking forward to reading her newer collection, which I've heard is even better.
May 6, 2016
A wonderful collection of short stories!
The ten short stories in this book are beautifully crafted, I thoroughly enjoyed the magical realism elements of the tales and found myself completely swept away!
We are told of wolf-girls, star-gazing and alligator wrestling - this book holds a story to grab anyone's imagination, I would recommend to all.
The ten short stories in this book are beautifully crafted, I thoroughly enjoyed the magical realism elements of the tales and found myself completely swept away!
We are told of wolf-girls, star-gazing and alligator wrestling - this book holds a story to grab anyone's imagination, I would recommend to all.
March 18, 2009
Confession time: I think ’s and ’s short stories are only okay. Occasionally one of their tales will astound me, but mostly I’m a bit “meh� on them—especially compared to how much many readers I respect love them. (Personally, I prefer .) So when I say that Karen Russell’s short stories read like Link or Bender rejects, I hope you can see how faint an endorsement that is coming from me. Most of the stories in this collection feature young first person narrators, and almost all end abruptly, without any real resolution, which I find very frustrating. What’s the point? Some of Russell’s imagery is nice—especially in “Haunting Olivia� and “The City of Shells”—but the collections quickly begins to feel samey and unfulfilling. I’d recommend reading one of Richter’s collections—or even one of Link’s or Bender’s—instead.
July 22, 2011
Unique stories with unabashed cuteness and quirky characters. I can think of a lot of people who would love these!
My favorite stories were Z.Z.'s Sleep-Away Camp for Disordered Dreamers, Accident Brief, and the title story.
"My older sister has entire kingdoms inside of her, and some of them are only accessible at certain seasons, in certain kinds of weather."
"Sister Josephine tasted like sweat and freckles. She smelled easy to kill."
My favorite stories were Z.Z.'s Sleep-Away Camp for Disordered Dreamers, Accident Brief, and the title story.
"My older sister has entire kingdoms inside of her, and some of them are only accessible at certain seasons, in certain kinds of weather."
"Sister Josephine tasted like sweat and freckles. She smelled easy to kill."
February 5, 2016
This book is the third short story collection I have read now and the first one which is by Karen Russell. I would have to say that each of the collections I've read so far have been very vastly different, and this one is probably the most magical realism in tone and imaginative, which sometimes awed me and occasionally lost me.
There are 10 stories within this collection and of the 10 I gave 2 of them 5*s, 6 of them 4*s and 2 of them 3*s. I think that averages out o a 4* overall and I am happy to say that whilst this isn't my favourite of the three (I guess I've been lucky that the first two were 5* ones) it's still definitely a collection I would highly recommend checking out.
My two top stories within this are definitely 'The Star-Gazer's Log of Summer-Time Crime' and 'The City of Shells'. Both of these stories truly captured my emotions in very different ways and I was just sucked into the characters and their plights.
'The Star-Gazer's Log of Summer-Time Crime' is a story about a young boy who ends up befriending a rather nasty boy during his summer holidays and they start doing all sorts of petty crimes together. They have two other friends in their group, a girl and a mentally challenged boy. The scale of the crimes is steadily growing and we see how they shift from silly pranks to mean, cruel jokes and tanuts aimed at Petey, the mentally challenged child... This is honestly the most uncomfortable story I have ever read. being party to the justifications our main character makes for his actions and seeing the way he documents them in the log is tough. Also the story is written truly beautifully and so we have a lot of juxtaposition of a lovely writing style and a more uncomfortable topic choice. This story really made me think and feel. Definitely a wonderfully crafted one.
'City of Shells' was a really wonderful story becuase the visuals of an island where you can see giant shells, so big you could get lost in them, was marvellous. I loved the idea for the island and we follow a school trip that a girl named Big Red takes there. She's a lonely character and has many issues with herself and her life, and she takes the time to escape these within one of the shells. I found this one moving and sad, forlorn and touching.
The other stories were nearly all fabulous too (although just not quite 5*s) and I would honestly highly recommend this to you if you're looking for an entry to Magical Realism collections. I will say that the first story in this was my least favourite and I wouldn't judge the rest of the collection until you have read at least the second one too which I felt was a much stronger and more powerful one.
On the whole, a wonderful 4* read and a collection I still very much recommend :)
There are 10 stories within this collection and of the 10 I gave 2 of them 5*s, 6 of them 4*s and 2 of them 3*s. I think that averages out o a 4* overall and I am happy to say that whilst this isn't my favourite of the three (I guess I've been lucky that the first two were 5* ones) it's still definitely a collection I would highly recommend checking out.
My two top stories within this are definitely 'The Star-Gazer's Log of Summer-Time Crime' and 'The City of Shells'. Both of these stories truly captured my emotions in very different ways and I was just sucked into the characters and their plights.
'The Star-Gazer's Log of Summer-Time Crime' is a story about a young boy who ends up befriending a rather nasty boy during his summer holidays and they start doing all sorts of petty crimes together. They have two other friends in their group, a girl and a mentally challenged boy. The scale of the crimes is steadily growing and we see how they shift from silly pranks to mean, cruel jokes and tanuts aimed at Petey, the mentally challenged child... This is honestly the most uncomfortable story I have ever read. being party to the justifications our main character makes for his actions and seeing the way he documents them in the log is tough. Also the story is written truly beautifully and so we have a lot of juxtaposition of a lovely writing style and a more uncomfortable topic choice. This story really made me think and feel. Definitely a wonderfully crafted one.
'City of Shells' was a really wonderful story becuase the visuals of an island where you can see giant shells, so big you could get lost in them, was marvellous. I loved the idea for the island and we follow a school trip that a girl named Big Red takes there. She's a lonely character and has many issues with herself and her life, and she takes the time to escape these within one of the shells. I found this one moving and sad, forlorn and touching.
The other stories were nearly all fabulous too (although just not quite 5*s) and I would honestly highly recommend this to you if you're looking for an entry to Magical Realism collections. I will say that the first story in this was my least favourite and I wouldn't judge the rest of the collection until you have read at least the second one too which I felt was a much stronger and more powerful one.
On the whole, a wonderful 4* read and a collection I still very much recommend :)
January 30, 2013
Reading these short stories is like failed masturbation.
No, really.
You start, and things are going well, and you feel pretty good. But suddenly it’s over and there wasn’t even any climax and you just sit there unsatisfied.
And it happens every single time. It seems like her formula, each short story is unfinished and each time it gets a little more annoying because you know that’s what’s going to happen. The one exception is the final story, which happens to be the title of the book, and I very much enjoyed that, and I felt as if it ended in a satisfactory manner. In fact I’m quite sad that it’s not a full novel because it was excellent and I would have liked more.
The author is a good writer with an even better imagination, there’s no doubt that these are good concepts. But with most of the stories, I feel like she got lazy, and this was a collection of story ideas she never took to fruition, instead of meaning to be half finished. And even if she started out with the idea of ending a story halfway through, why do it almost every time? Maybe that’s a signature style likes but I really can’t stand it; taking a good concept and never ending it seems like a waste. This short story collection reads more like an unfinished word document collection.
The first story of this collection is what later became the author’s full novel, Swamplandia. I find it interesting she chose that one though because out of all the imaginative concepts presented in the book I found it one of the least intriguing. My favorite stories where the camp for kids with various sleeping problems, the Minotaur pioneer family, and the title story, about the crazy wolf girls who attempting to be tamed by nuns. I would definitely be interested in seeing all three of these as full length novels.
I might recommend this book if you are in a position like me where you read in small spurts while commuting, since it’s just little bursts of stories here and there. Character in some sort of imaginary whimsical situation (most take place on the same island and have some sort of interwoven element from a previous story), then character gets in a situation which begins to be a big deal…and�.end scene? Most of the time we never find out what happens.
I already bought her novel Swamplandia before I read this collection, so I will end up reading more of her anyway. I have faith in her writing and imagination, but I hope she will prove to me that she can finish a story conclusively next time.
No, really.
You start, and things are going well, and you feel pretty good. But suddenly it’s over and there wasn’t even any climax and you just sit there unsatisfied.
And it happens every single time. It seems like her formula, each short story is unfinished and each time it gets a little more annoying because you know that’s what’s going to happen. The one exception is the final story, which happens to be the title of the book, and I very much enjoyed that, and I felt as if it ended in a satisfactory manner. In fact I’m quite sad that it’s not a full novel because it was excellent and I would have liked more.
The author is a good writer with an even better imagination, there’s no doubt that these are good concepts. But with most of the stories, I feel like she got lazy, and this was a collection of story ideas she never took to fruition, instead of meaning to be half finished. And even if she started out with the idea of ending a story halfway through, why do it almost every time? Maybe that’s a signature style likes but I really can’t stand it; taking a good concept and never ending it seems like a waste. This short story collection reads more like an unfinished word document collection.
The first story of this collection is what later became the author’s full novel, Swamplandia. I find it interesting she chose that one though because out of all the imaginative concepts presented in the book I found it one of the least intriguing. My favorite stories where the camp for kids with various sleeping problems, the Minotaur pioneer family, and the title story, about the crazy wolf girls who attempting to be tamed by nuns. I would definitely be interested in seeing all three of these as full length novels.
I might recommend this book if you are in a position like me where you read in small spurts while commuting, since it’s just little bursts of stories here and there. Character in some sort of imaginary whimsical situation (most take place on the same island and have some sort of interwoven element from a previous story), then character gets in a situation which begins to be a big deal…and�.end scene? Most of the time we never find out what happens.
I already bought her novel Swamplandia before I read this collection, so I will end up reading more of her anyway. I have faith in her writing and imagination, but I hope she will prove to me that she can finish a story conclusively next time.
November 26, 2018
Before I even looked, I knew the precocious young author of this collection (she was 25 when it was published) had an MFA. She has a unique voice and gift for stringing lovely chains of words together there's no doubt, but just about every story in here suffers from Raymond Carver Syndrome. They all come clanking to a sudden, sometimes bewildering halt.
Look, I like Raymond Carver; "A Small Good Thing" is one of my favorite short stories of all time. But now it seems like every matriculated short story writer has to model that "abrupt but, like, meaningful!" termination style and I don't think even Carver himself consistently pulled it off. And if I had to describe my relationship to magical realism with one word, it would be "fraught." I only got as far as I did because the subjects of these stories are all children, who live in a world where magic always exists on the margins, to either delight or terrify in alternating instants.
While Russell's stories might be fine to read in isolation in the pages of The New Yorker, there was a mild tedium and a disconsonant rhythm that crept in reading them in succession, much like driving the old, unreliable Mazda I had in college. A story would jerk to a start, the Southern Gothic/magical realism setting would mean it takes longer to get your bearings (most of the stories take place on a small, eccentric island off of Florida's coast), then out of nowhere the engine sputters to an unceremonious stop. Over and over.
There are 10 stories in this collection, one of which ("Ava Wrestles the Alligator") was the inspiration for her first novel, Swamplandia!, which was a Pulitzer finalist. There were parts I liked in many of the stories, and some of them will stick with me. But I confess that I made it thru 6 of them and then found I had a real negative desire to pick the book up again.
I think 3 stars is a fair round-off here.
ETA: My memory of this book is not a fond one, so I’m stealth lowering the rating. I’ve gazed at Swamplandia! with interest so many times, but it’s permanently off the radar now.
Look, I like Raymond Carver; "A Small Good Thing" is one of my favorite short stories of all time. But now it seems like every matriculated short story writer has to model that "abrupt but, like, meaningful!" termination style and I don't think even Carver himself consistently pulled it off. And if I had to describe my relationship to magical realism with one word, it would be "fraught." I only got as far as I did because the subjects of these stories are all children, who live in a world where magic always exists on the margins, to either delight or terrify in alternating instants.
While Russell's stories might be fine to read in isolation in the pages of The New Yorker, there was a mild tedium and a disconsonant rhythm that crept in reading them in succession, much like driving the old, unreliable Mazda I had in college. A story would jerk to a start, the Southern Gothic/magical realism setting would mean it takes longer to get your bearings (most of the stories take place on a small, eccentric island off of Florida's coast), then out of nowhere the engine sputters to an unceremonious stop. Over and over.
There are 10 stories in this collection, one of which ("Ava Wrestles the Alligator") was the inspiration for her first novel, Swamplandia!, which was a Pulitzer finalist. There were parts I liked in many of the stories, and some of them will stick with me. But I confess that I made it thru 6 of them and then found I had a real negative desire to pick the book up again.
I think 3 stars is a fair round-off here.
ETA: My memory of this book is not a fond one, so I’m stealth lowering the rating. I’ve gazed at Swamplandia! with interest so many times, but it’s permanently off the radar now.
January 16, 2008
On its own, each story in this collection is a treasure, in which children have minotaurs for fathers or hunt for the ghosts of siblings washed to sea in giant clamshell sleds. Russell's distinct voice shines through each piece, and coming across one of these in the magazines where they first appeared would be a genuine treat.
Unfortunately, the stories are weakened by being strung together. Russell writes in a distinct voice, but nearly every story is written in that same voice. Each story ends in the middle; there is no piece in the collection that has a resolution to it; the reader is always left hanging as to how a situation turns out, what the next part of the conversation is, what happens come morning. When reading just one story, these ambiguous endings can be powerful (and indeed they do, at first), but when taken together, they just feel unfinished.
The writing is very good (Russell's vocabulary is impressive) and the ideas are strong. I'd be surprised if St. Lucy's Home doesn't garner comparisons to Magic for Beginners, as they're both collections of magic realism/fantastic short stories written by women, but the tone isn't similar at all. Where Kelly Link's writing is loose, flowing, casual, Russell's is tightly written and controlled. As a collection, I'd have liked to see more variety in style and tone, but these flaws won't keep me from waiting for her next anthology.
Unfortunately, the stories are weakened by being strung together. Russell writes in a distinct voice, but nearly every story is written in that same voice. Each story ends in the middle; there is no piece in the collection that has a resolution to it; the reader is always left hanging as to how a situation turns out, what the next part of the conversation is, what happens come morning. When reading just one story, these ambiguous endings can be powerful (and indeed they do, at first), but when taken together, they just feel unfinished.
The writing is very good (Russell's vocabulary is impressive) and the ideas are strong. I'd be surprised if St. Lucy's Home doesn't garner comparisons to Magic for Beginners, as they're both collections of magic realism/fantastic short stories written by women, but the tone isn't similar at all. Where Kelly Link's writing is loose, flowing, casual, Russell's is tightly written and controlled. As a collection, I'd have liked to see more variety in style and tone, but these flaws won't keep me from waiting for her next anthology.
October 17, 2019
Karen Russell's short story collection St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolvessurprised me on so many levels! Each story is quirky, intelligent, and narrated by an oddball characters (mostly precocious kids) in a bizarre situation. I also love that all the stories take place in the same town in the Florida Everglades, allowing brief crossovers with mentions of places and peoples from other stories.
These ten stories are charming and unusual.
My favorites were Ava Wrestles the Alligator (a young girl tries to save her sister from possession), Haunting Olivia (two brothers search for their sister who was lost at sea with the help of a pair of magic goggles), and Out to Sea(man living in a houseboat retirement community desperately wants the friendship of a teen in an at-risk teen program).
Russell is a talented writer with great short story skill (that's my two cents and I'm someone who finds short stories to be a real hit or miss usually). There were a couple times the stories reminded me of early Chuck Palahniuk with some Steven Millhauser vibes but trust me when I say every story in this collection is unique, unsettling, and highly entertaining!
I recommend St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves to readers who love short stories, magical realism, and quirky narrators!
For more reviews, visit
These ten stories are charming and unusual.
My favorites were Ava Wrestles the Alligator (a young girl tries to save her sister from possession), Haunting Olivia (two brothers search for their sister who was lost at sea with the help of a pair of magic goggles), and Out to Sea(man living in a houseboat retirement community desperately wants the friendship of a teen in an at-risk teen program).
Russell is a talented writer with great short story skill (that's my two cents and I'm someone who finds short stories to be a real hit or miss usually). There were a couple times the stories reminded me of early Chuck Palahniuk with some Steven Millhauser vibes but trust me when I say every story in this collection is unique, unsettling, and highly entertaining!
I recommend St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves to readers who love short stories, magical realism, and quirky narrators!
For more reviews, visit
February 28, 2013
This seems to be a slightly unpopular opinion, I'm discovering - but I adore Karen Russell's work. I had some issues with but that book has stuck with me far longer than it had any right to, perhaps because it forced me to feel so strangely. But Ms. Russell's first book of short stories is incredible. None of them quite resolve and instead ring out like tones echoing through a church long after the organ has ceased to sound. They are all, even the most mundane ones, quite fantastical - for they evoke a sort of melancholy that is not necessarily sad, there's some happy in there too, but mostly they just feel like magic. Real, actual magic. Right there on the page.
I'm a true believer, folks. This is the real deal.
I expound further and more eloquently on the topic at RB:
I'm a true believer, folks. This is the real deal.
I expound further and more eloquently on the topic at RB:
March 31, 2016
3.5 stars.
This was my BookTube recommends pick from Jen Campbell - thanks Jen for suggesting this collection!
This was my first experience of Karen Russell's writing, having seen countless rave reviews on YouTube. Many booktubers that I know and love are massive fans of Russell, and I was eager to pick up this collection when it was recommended to me. Russell writes magical realism short stories, which I am not as familiar with because with short stories I usually lean towards contemporary collections, so it was great to try something a bit different.
I had mixed feelings about this collection for the majority of the time I was reading the collection, and in all honesty found it quite difficult to get into at first. I was aware that the first story Ava Wrestles the Alligator was closely related to Russell's novel Swamplandia!, so there was some familiarity going into the first story, but I wasn't quite ready for how surreal and bizarre Russell's stories would be - it took me completely by surprise and left me feeling a little lost at first. I did get used to the style however as I read on, so overall I think if I returned to this collection I would maybe enjoy it more on a re-read.
Russell is clearly a very talented writer, with some creative turns of phrase and an incredible imagination - I could only dream of coming up with some of the plots she comes out with. However, something that did bother me about some of the stories, particularly the earlier stories, were the endings. I felt that they ended before their time, when I was expecting more, and didn't feel resolved. I gather that they weren't meant to be, but the endings weren't cliffhangers either - I just found them abrupt.
I definitely thought there were some stand-out fantastic stories in this collection though that I would definitely read again and recommend to others. My favourites were Z.Z's Sleep-Away Camp for Disordered Dreamers, from Children's Reminiscences of the Westward Migration, Lady Yeti and the Palace of Artificial Snows, and the titular story St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves , which was just magical in its ideas and writing.
I am definitely glad I've now read some Karen Russell, and will definitely be checking out her other short story collection.
This was my BookTube recommends pick from Jen Campbell - thanks Jen for suggesting this collection!
This was my first experience of Karen Russell's writing, having seen countless rave reviews on YouTube. Many booktubers that I know and love are massive fans of Russell, and I was eager to pick up this collection when it was recommended to me. Russell writes magical realism short stories, which I am not as familiar with because with short stories I usually lean towards contemporary collections, so it was great to try something a bit different.
I had mixed feelings about this collection for the majority of the time I was reading the collection, and in all honesty found it quite difficult to get into at first. I was aware that the first story Ava Wrestles the Alligator was closely related to Russell's novel Swamplandia!, so there was some familiarity going into the first story, but I wasn't quite ready for how surreal and bizarre Russell's stories would be - it took me completely by surprise and left me feeling a little lost at first. I did get used to the style however as I read on, so overall I think if I returned to this collection I would maybe enjoy it more on a re-read.
Russell is clearly a very talented writer, with some creative turns of phrase and an incredible imagination - I could only dream of coming up with some of the plots she comes out with. However, something that did bother me about some of the stories, particularly the earlier stories, were the endings. I felt that they ended before their time, when I was expecting more, and didn't feel resolved. I gather that they weren't meant to be, but the endings weren't cliffhangers either - I just found them abrupt.
I definitely thought there were some stand-out fantastic stories in this collection though that I would definitely read again and recommend to others. My favourites were Z.Z's Sleep-Away Camp for Disordered Dreamers, from Children's Reminiscences of the Westward Migration, Lady Yeti and the Palace of Artificial Snows, and the titular story St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves , which was just magical in its ideas and writing.
I am definitely glad I've now read some Karen Russell, and will definitely be checking out her other short story collection.
September 13, 2016
These stories were compulsively readable, but only one or two of them ended satisfactorily for me. I felt like there was no resolution to the stories, they ended a page or two too early in the middle of a paragraph. I liked Russell's writing style, but her stories all shared similar themes, characters and structures. I'm interested in what she comes out with next, though I'm not sure I get on with her stories all that well. My favorite stories in the collection were "Haunting Olivia" and "Out to Sea."
January 21, 2019
NEW REVIEW AFTER 2019 REREAD:
What happened? Granted this was the Karen Russell book I remembered liking the least, but I still remembered LIKING the collection as a whole. Even though the first two stories are REALLY good, the others range from kind of ok to absolute TRASH. This only makes me worried when I do a reread of "Swamplandia!" this year. These stories felt VERY amateur compared to the ones in "Vampires In the Lemon Grove." They end abruptly, they focus WAY too much on the fantastical aspects and not enough on the characters, and the way these stories were handled RADIATED the influence of a first-time writer. While I am PUMPED for her new book this year, I will always remember Karen Russell as the author that only got better after a lackluster debut collection. "Haunting Olivia" is still a great story, though.
I am giving this one a 2.5 out of 5 stars.
OLD REVIEW:
From now on, I don't want anything to sway me in my ratings. With this one, I was kind of swayed to like this due to me LOVING Karen Russell's novel "Swamplandia!" So with that in mind, I went into this collection really expecting something great. While the good stories are really good, the bad stories are really bad. Some of these stories, mainly in the latter half of the collection, just get TOO weird and out-of-this-world. While I want to say that I liked this, I can't really go all out on it. However, quality wise it did have a few good stories in here and I do see some people loving this. However, it was just not all for me. It was a decent collection with a lot of disappointment on its shoulders.
I am giving this one a 3 out of 5 stars.
What happened? Granted this was the Karen Russell book I remembered liking the least, but I still remembered LIKING the collection as a whole. Even though the first two stories are REALLY good, the others range from kind of ok to absolute TRASH. This only makes me worried when I do a reread of "Swamplandia!" this year. These stories felt VERY amateur compared to the ones in "Vampires In the Lemon Grove." They end abruptly, they focus WAY too much on the fantastical aspects and not enough on the characters, and the way these stories were handled RADIATED the influence of a first-time writer. While I am PUMPED for her new book this year, I will always remember Karen Russell as the author that only got better after a lackluster debut collection. "Haunting Olivia" is still a great story, though.
I am giving this one a 2.5 out of 5 stars.
OLD REVIEW:
From now on, I don't want anything to sway me in my ratings. With this one, I was kind of swayed to like this due to me LOVING Karen Russell's novel "Swamplandia!" So with that in mind, I went into this collection really expecting something great. While the good stories are really good, the bad stories are really bad. Some of these stories, mainly in the latter half of the collection, just get TOO weird and out-of-this-world. While I want to say that I liked this, I can't really go all out on it. However, quality wise it did have a few good stories in here and I do see some people loving this. However, it was just not all for me. It was a decent collection with a lot of disappointment on its shoulders.
I am giving this one a 3 out of 5 stars.
April 26, 2017
I read and enjoyed Russell's second short story collection, Vampires in the Lemon Grove, so it seemed rather obvious that at some point I would read her first, St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. It is a very odd collection; sometimes the magical realism was jarring, and I did not feel as though it tied together that well as a whole. A lot of the stories ended quite abruptly, and did not really live up to expectation. The narrative voices, almost all of annoying and precocious children, used were not distinctive enough to be set apart from one another on the whole, and whilst the plots were wildly different at times, this was another reason by which I lost interest somewhat. Russell clearly has a vivid imagination, but this isn't a collection which I would go out of my way to recommend.
December 28, 2015
There are a lot of beautiful and sparkling moments, but they don't add up to something emotionally or narratively satisfying. As soon as I knew what she was up to in a story there were no surprises and often no deepening into meaning greater than what is offered in the initial concept. I had to bring the book back to the library or would say a bit more and post some passages.
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