I recently finally got around to reading Octavia Butler’s Eathseed books, which in retrospect, was probably not a great idea. They are pretty bleak dystopia, after all. And Octavia Butler is a brilliant writer. She makes you feel it all the way through. Given that today’s world is edging that way. I’m not sure I needed that.
So, next, I decided I needed a little bit of a respite. Who better to get me focused on the warm and fuzzies but Annie Reed? She is also a fantastic writer, and I love her frame of reference. So inclined, I ran off to my local ebook store and plopped “Annie Reed” into the search engine. A quick scan of the convinced me to grab a copy of Everyday Magic, which is a collection of Annie’s short stories—the introduction of which confirmed that they would be the palate cleansers I was looking for.
Aside: Annie has released several collections. I’m sure you can’t go wrong with any, but I admit my choice this time was influenced by the title “Chance of Bunnies and Occasional Toads.” If you can’t love a story with that title, I figured, you can’t love anything.
Anyway, I finished it last night.
This time through my favorites were “Rolo the Great” and “Reunion” (though Bunnies was also fun). I put it that way because I have a tendency to reread short story collections, and I’m always kind of surprised to find that different stories hit me different ways in subsequent readings. My favorites shift. I liked “Snow Queen,” too, this time around. My guess is that another reading might push it up. Same with “How We Danced,” which is really quite lovely.
Just what the doctor ordered.
Consider it $2.99 well spent.