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Burning Girls and Other Stories

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Member Reviews

This is a really interesting short story collection. These are typically hard for me to fully enjoy but I liked this one. Most of the stories follow a woman with vengeance; great to read. Really liked "Among the Thorns," "Phosphorus," and "Swimming." I'd never read a story before that was like "Emma Goldman Takes Tea with the Baba Yaga"--mixing personal essay, biography, and fairy tale.
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What Schanoes is doing, in other words, is practicing a realist mode of fairy-tale storytelling, one that knows what the source material is about but grounds it in times and places appropriate to its themes. Fairy tales, we’re told over and over again in “Rats,” are lies, but that isn’t strictly true. It’s fascinating to see Schanoes’ tales inhabit the space between truth, lies, and historical fact.

Jonathan Crowe

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I love the diversity of these stores. A little bit of everything from historical fiction to fairy tales and mythology and anti-semitism and it goes on. Even if you don't love all of the stories, most of them fulfill lyrical prose and a vivid imagination that will eventually hit home.

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This collection is dark, whimsical, and beautifully written. I enjoyed every single story, though some connected to me stronger than others. Of course, the Baba Yaga story was my favorite, a fact that's simply unavoidable, but every dark folktale in this book is full of strange creatures, emotional vulnerability, and powerful women. Such a beautiful book!

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This collection was like many collections- some great stories, some that were okay, and some that left me cold. Common themes in the stories: GLBTQ+, feminism, Jewishness, folk and fairy tale retellings, labor movement, mental illness.

I always like a good retelling/reframing of a classic story, and the final story "Burning Girls" managed to put together pretty much all of the themes I've listed above, wrapping the tale of Rumplestiltskin with immigration and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. It was one of the strongest stories in the book. I also liked "How to Bring Someone Back from the Dead" with its allusions to many such heroic efforts and "Ballroom Blitz" with its echoes of The Red Shoes and the Shapeshifted Swan Brothers combined with a rockabilly style and unexpected notes of the desperation of the chronically mentally ill.

"Phosphorus" was good but just plain depressing as it described the life and death of a match girl, one who worked in a phosphorus match factory. "The Revenant" was also an interesting a creepy meditation on vengeance.

I didn't so much enjoy "Tea with Baba Yaga", "Lost in the Supermarket" which just felt pointless, or "Alice: a fantasia " which was a little too trippy and disjointed from reality for me.

It took me a bit longer than I wanted to finish this book because I stalled on some of the weaker stories, but if you skim past them there are rewards worth reading.

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I tried giving this a read in multiple occasions but I found Schanoes' storytelling to be somewhat dull.

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I didn't love all of the stories in this book but I loved a fair number of them. The last one having me tear up at the end (The one the Title comes from). My favorite was Phosphorous, a story about the Phosphorous Girls of London.

I found the references to Alice in Wonderland incredibly interesting as they would always appear when I least expected them.

There were takes on tales I've heard before, as well as tales I hadn't (or at least didn't make a direct connection from one to the other).

I would definitely recommend this, even if you're just checking it out from the library for reading on individual time I would recommend it.

It is also gay, and being gay never seems to be anything out of the ordinary. Which I LOVE.

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This collection didn’t wow me, but it was very good. The title story definitely stood out. Some of the others (like the 12 dancing princesses retelling) had an interesting premise but seemed to drag out too long. I may be a bit spoiled because the last few short story collections I’ve read were amazing, so in comparison this fell short. I’d still be interested in what the author releases next.

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Burning Girls and Other Stories is a collection of short stories written by the one and only Veronica Schanoes. This is a powerful and compelling collection, and it does not pull punches when it comes to text or subtext.

Here you'll find short stories that are a variety of genres, some of which will defy individual categorization. All of them contain fierce and determined women – women who have been sent to the corners of their society in hopes of being forgotten.

Included within Burning Girls and Other Stories you'll find thirteen stories, including: Among the Thorns, How to Bring Someone Back from the Dead, Alice: A Fantasia, Phosphorus, Ballroom Blitz, Serpents, Emma Goldman Takes Tea with the Baba Yaga, Rats, Lost in the Supermarket, Swimming, Lily Glass, The Revenant, and Burning Girls.


Among the Thorns
Rating: ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆
Among the Thorns is a short story about a mother goddess and a young girl. It carries many heavy yet powerful messages, including the violence that stemmed from antisemitism and how damaging it was to the families impacted.
"A man will confess to anything when he is being tortured."
This is one of those stories that cuts to the core and is a powerful beginning to this collection. Here, Veronica Schanoes makes it clear that she has a message to get out there, and she is not going to be ignored.


How to Bring Someone Back from the Dead
Rating: ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆
If you're looking for a novel that will hit you right in the feels, it is How to Bring Someone Back from the Dead. This one reads like a blend between a fairy tale and a cautionary tale (though frequently, there's already a very little distinction between the two).
"It hurts to come back from the dead. And it hurts to bring someone back from the dead."
Part of me wishes that How to Bring Someone Back from the Dead was just a little bit longer. It had so much potential, and I think it would have carried more weight if we had just a bit more time to delve deeper.


Alice: A Fantasia
Rating: ⋆ ⋆ ⋆
The title is naturally going to make readers think that this is some sort of retelling of Alice in Wonderland. And perhaps it is. This is the tale of a young girl named Alice, and how it was never herself she saw when she is looking into a reflection. She saw someone else.
"All her life, Alice has looked in the mirror and seen somebody else instead of herself."
Alice: A Fantasia ended up making me think a lot more than I had anticipated. On the one hand, I adore that. On the other hand, I have so many questions about this story.


Phosphorus
Rating: ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆
Set in 19th century London, Phosphorus tells the story of Lucy the matchgirl. Like many girls who worked to make matches in that era, her life was not a great one. She wound up getting Phossy Jaw and would have been in a dire situation if not for her grandmother.
"It begins with a toothache. And those are not uncommon, not where you live, not when you live."
Phosphorus hits harder because of the reality that it is set in. Yes, the conclusion is very much a being of fantasy, but the little matchgirl's situation? That is very real and very raw. It's an excellent read, especially for those that like a little blend of history in their fiction.


Ballroom Blitz
Rating: ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆
Twelve boys are forever stuck in a bar. That is unless they can get the same 12 girls to dance with them every night for 101 nights straight. What would you do to gain your freedom? And how would it feel when finally attained?
"And we may have been under a curse, but I remember us always laughing."
I sincerely think that Ballroom Blitz is my favorite short of this anthology, and part of me almost feels like it should have been placed either earlier or later in the collection as a bit of an anchor. Either way, this is a brilliant read that I would not skip out on.


Serpents
Rating: ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆
Serpents is another tale that very much reads like a classic fairy tale. One girl follows a rabbit down a modern rabbit hole (the subway station); here, the story takes several interesting twists and turns.
"Will you take the path of pins or the path of needles?"
Serpents was simultaneously an interesting and confusing short story. I feel like much of the confusion was intentional, so I didn't actually mind that all that much. In fact, I enjoyed the overall feel of this story.


Emma Goldman Takes Tea with the Baba Yaga
Rating: ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆
Here is the tale of one very real historical figure and her meeting with a being of legend. Emma Goldman, the famous anarchist, is about to have tea with the one and only Baba Yaga.
"Truth can be told in any number of ways. It's all a matter of emphasis. Of voice. I have not lied about anything yet."
To say that I was surprised when I saw this title would be an understatement. I was even more surprised to see that it really did include both Emma Goldman and the Baba Yaga. It was odd yet delightful in equal measure.


Rats
Rating: ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆
Warnings: Drug addiction
Young Lily was born in pain. Her whole life was pain, and there was little she could do to escape it. Except, one day, she found a release in heroin, and that was all she needed.
"Just so, you will know these characters by their story. As with all fairy tales, even new ones, you may well recognize the story."
This is a story that is going to hit hard. Especially for anyone that has ever known somebody with drug addiction or even a friend/family member who has suffered from chronic pain. It hurts to see, and thus this hurts to read.


Lost in the Supermarket
Rating: ⋆
Warnings: Animal mutilation/death
I'm going to be honest with you here; I don't really know what this one is all about. I had to stop once the graphic animal mutilations appeared, so I only have this quote to help give you an idea of what is in store.
"All I have now are the fluorescent lights, and I think they're the reason that I vanished in the first place."


Swimming
Rating: ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆
Swimming is a strange yet fascinating tale of one family and their obsession to constantly build bigger and better. Sorry, but that is arguably the best summary I have for you.
"It is not a house at all, but a beast, a god, a toad-like Moloch-Baal squatting in the heart of Brooklyn devouring the offerings of labor, love, and material bounty my future in-laws offer up."
This short kind of reminded me of the Winchester house – the one that kept getting added onto since a fortune told the owner she would die when the house was complete. This was an interesting but oddly dark read, in some ways, with a lot of room for interpretation.


Lily Glass
Rating: ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆
Two girls are both searching for what it means to be themselves and somehow find each other in the process.
"It wasn't even the first time she had lost one name and gained another."
Lily Girls is a beautiful and poetic tale, one that hits home in so many different ways. Additionally, there's something so lyrical about the way this tale unfolds.


The Revenant
Rating: ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆
Warning: Child Abuse
A little girl seeks a safe place or person to speak to about the traumas of her life. This is not a read for everyone.
"The revenant is the one who comes back. The revenant comes back from the dead, but home is gone, so all that is left is haunting."
Once again, Schanoes words hit hard and hit home with this tale, which speaks of trauma, abuse, and the need to find different ways to cope with it all.


Burning Girls
Rating: ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆
Burning Girls is the longest story in this collection, as well as being the namesake. It is also the final story in this collection.
Deborah has always known who and what she is. She's the granddaughter of the village witch, and she had hoped to someday carry on in that tradition. However, it was just the skills of her grandmother she inherited, but her secrets as well. Those secrets follow Deborah and her sister all the way to America and very nearly cost them everything.
"In America, they don't let you burn. My mother told me that."
I can see why Burning Girls became the namesake for this anthology, and not just because of the length itself. This was a delightful story to read, and I swear it was gone in the blink of an eye; that's how into the narrative I was. Out of all the stories here, I recommend this one the most.

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* I received this book in exchange for a fair and honest review *
This collection of short stories hit all the right notes for me. It was an interesting mix of writing style and thematic elements; I was able to see threads of Aimee Bender, Neil Gaiman, Jane Yolen, Shirley Jackson, Elizabeth Hand. There's also more than a dash of Carmen Maria Machado, and some of the stories felt a lot like Daisy Johnson's collection Fen, It's a weird, wonderful collection of queer, Jewish feminist speculative fiction short stories, many of which have elements of fairy tale in them, as well as Jewish folklore. It's all interwoven into stories that are confounding, beautiful, luxuriously layered, and I like that all the female protagonists have a sharp edge to them. If you read nothing else in this collection, do NOT skip over "Among the Thorns", which is the flip side of the Grimm's Fairy Tale "The Jew Among the Thorns", and it is exactly the counterbalance that the folk tale requires for the modern world. Trust me, if you read nothing else from this collection, read Among the Thorns. I am a fan of short stories that make you work for meaning, and that make you come out of your safety zone as a reader to assign your own meaning to the work -- kind of like if David Lynch were writing a book -- and this collection delivers on that promise. Some of the stories make you knock on the door three times before they grant you entry, and when you finally come to your own truth in the story, you've earned it. I loved every story in this collection a lot, but my favorite was probably Phosphorus, because as a kid I was haunted by the story of The Little Match Girl, and this story really zeroed in on the real story, which is living in a capitalist's world where we allow children to starve, freeze, and be poisoned by unsafe labor in pursuit of the almighty dollar. Overall, this will be a collection I will recommend and send to friends and teachers who I think would love these stories. Can't wait to see what this author does next.

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I’m usually not a fan of short stories, but since it was being published by TOR, I knew I had to read it. It definitely did not disappoint. I honestly found each store better than the last. The stories were filled with strong and fierce women and I had a hard time putting this book down. While some of the stories were confusing, I really did enjoy them all.

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Dark, feminist folktales abound in Burning Girls. Favorites include Emma Goldman meeting Baba Yaga, the cursed origins of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, and a tale of revenge for an antisemitic murder. Told from a feminist, socialist perspective, some of the stories in Burning Girls can feel dogmatic, but the quality of Shanoes' writing makes even the most doctrinaire statements fun to read.

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It was a great collection of short stories. There were some that I absolutely love while on the other hand... I was finding it hard to get into a couple of stories. None the less I enjoyed the book

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With a blurb from Karen Joy Fowler, I knew this would be good, and it didn't disappoint. This collection of short stories was delightful, haunting, and engaging. I can't wait to read more from this author.

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This collection of fantasy and contemporary fiction short stories was a bit 'yeah and meh'. Some of the Jewish own voices stories were really really good. Yet reading some of the more speculative fiction stories, I felt a bit lost.

Strong stories nonetheless even if they might make you feel uncomfortable.

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The world of fiction will always have room for fairy tales.

The genre fluidity that comes with literary fiction leaves plenty of space for writers to explore the vast expanse of fantasy and morality that springs from the classic fairy tale. And so when we see modern authors adapting the ethos and entities of those long-told tales, it can be engaging in ways both intellectual and visceral.

That’s the energy that Veronica Schanoes brings to her new book “Burning Girls and Other Stories.” It’s a collection of 13 stories, a baker’s dozen of fairy tale-inspired works driven by the dual powers of the fantastic and the feminist. It incorporates tropes of the fairy tale realm into stories of women fighting back against a society that devalues and others them; there are elements of punk rock and Judaism and revolutionary leftist political thought as well.

These disparate elements could have resulted in stories that were uneven and muddled, stitched-together Frankenstein’s monsters of overstuffed pastiche. Instead, Schanoes wields her razor-sharp craft like a scalpel, carving every one of these pieces into something distinct and idiosyncratic and undeniably powerful. Intellectually challenging and emotionally intense, it’s a collection packed tight with highlights.

From “Among the Thorns,” the bleak and vivid revenge story that leads off the collection, to the combination immigrant fable/industrial horror of the titular tale that closes things out, “Burning Girls and Other Stories” is filled with memorable, haunting stories. The former is set in centuries-past Europe, the latter in the early 20th century, moving from Poland to New York City. Both are filled with deeds of dark magic.

Other personal high points include “Ballroom Blitz,” a story of a group of brothers cursed to spend their lives trapped in the dingy confines of a dive bar, causing chaos at night and cleaning up the aftermath in the day. “Lost in the Supermarket” and “Alice: A Fantasia” offer very different riffs on aspects of the classic “Alice in Wonderland.” “Lily Glass” is a story of tragic love set against a backdrop of old Hollywood. And lest we forget, the self-explanatory “Emma Goldman Takes Tea with the Baba Yaga.”

On and on they go, each story a wonderfully self-contained work of controlled chaos and shadow magic. Folktales of long-ago magic and creatures from beyond the veil. Stories of returning the dead to the world of the living. These are tales in which evil is present, but while some of these stories hinge on that evil, others are driven by an understanding that the universe is neither caring nor uncaring, but simply indifferent to us, sufferings and celebrations alike.

And again – while the magic of fairy tales carries through, we also get a variety of other influences. The revolutionary ideals of the mid-20th century are prevalent, with figures both real and fictional from that sphere appearing periodically. The protagonists of these stories – almost all women – are also guided by a desire to throw off the yokes of oppression, whether it is by exacting revenge on those who wronged them or moving to a new land of opportunity or simply submerging themselves in an edgy punk rock subculture.

There’s a lot to dig about this book, but one of the most immediately striking things one notices upon finishing is the fact that the stories are somehow wide-ranging AND clearly related. They each operate under their own individual parameters while also sharing DNA. Like any family, there are outliers that nevertheless share similarities.

“Burning Girls and Other Stories” also has that quality that marks the best short fiction collections – a compulsive readability. Each story is so provocative and so satisfyingly concluded that the reader almost can’t help turning the page and diving into the next.

All of this brings us to this fundamental truth: Veronica Schanoes is one HELL of a good writer. To be able to bring together such wide-ranging influences and ideas into stories that are not just coherent, but downright compelling … wow. She’s got an ear for sharp dialogue and an ability to seamlessly and effectively blend historical fact with folkloric detail – all of it in service to stories that have elements of the familiar incorporated into a beautiful originality. Some real writerly gifts on display throughout.

“Burning Girls and Other Stories” is a book that I wasn’t expecting, a surprise that became more and more exciting with every turned page. One of the truest joys of my job is discovery – reading and reviewing authors whose work I know and love is great, of course, but there’s nothing like realizing that this new book from an unfamiliar author that you chose is not just good, but more than good. “Burning Girls and Other Stories” is more than good.

In fact, it is straight fire.

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Burning Girls and Other Stories is a fascinating and magical collection of short stories from Veronica Schanoes. Showcasing the resilience of women, this collection draws on historical events and folktales and paints them in a new light. In Phosphorus, my favorite of the collection, we learn of the horrors of an unsafe workplace and the devastating and deadly consequences that can be found when workers, often women, are left with no power. In Among the Thorns, the opening story, a young woman seeks revenge on the people who murdered her father. Powerfully told, you can feel the anger and grief grown inside Ittele as she learns of her father’s death and the way the village that murdered him gloated about his death. After her mother dies, she sets out to seek revenge and learns there is more to the world than she knows.
How to Bring Someone Back from the Dead explores the tortuous journey of grieving someone you love and the understandable reaction to want them back.
While many of the stories focus on the grief and loss, at the heart of it, this collection highlights the strength and resilience of women. In the end, the women move on under their own terms and in their own way.
Beautiful, dark, and expertly put together, this collection is one that should be on everyone’s shelf.

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I was very interested in this collection when I first heard of it mid 2020; history, and I've enjoyed both Link and Russell, so those references seemed promising.

Unfortunately, the writing isn't for me. I read the first story (Among the Thorns), which seems to be a favourite among other readers, and while it was fine, it took me far too long to read for a short story (I kept setting it down and forgetting to pick it back up).

I'm not going to finish this one, unfortunately, but won't be publishing a public review because I didn't read the majority.

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The exploration of folklore intrigued me at first but the stories failed to keep me enthralled as many of them seemed a bit redundant and fell flat.

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Veronica Schanoes’ collection Burning Girls and Other Stories started strong, hit a rough patch for a lengthy time, then ended strong. It is, therefore, the epitome of the mixed bag. Of the thirteen tales, I found one to be a standout, two others good, a few solid ones and a numer that didn’t do anything for me. I won’t go through each one, but here are my responses to several of the stories.

“Among the Thorns”
This is the opening piece and is also the one I thought stood out amongst the collection. Not only is it a strong opening story, but it’s also a killer opening line and paragraph:

They made my father dance in thorns before they kills him.
I used to think that this was a metaphor, that they beat him with thorny vines, perhaps. But I was wrong about that.
They made him dance.

The story is set in the 17th Century and narrated by a young Jewish girl whose family lives in a carefully calibrated home: “not too small and not too big … a nice home, but not too nice … ‘Too nice and they are jealous’ [my mother] told me, ‘But not nice enough, and they won’t come and do business.’” That same sort of calculation drives all her parents’ choices — “’Too many of too close together’ [my mother] said, ‘and they think we’re plotting against them. Of course, they don’t like it when we move too far into their places either. I do what I can to strike the right balance.’” It isn’t enough, though, as that opening paragraph warns us, and so when her father is murdered by the people of Dornburg where he was doing business, young Ittele swear to her Uncle Leyb she “will kill them all. Every one.” She will need the help of a goddess to do so, and even then many years will pass until she has the opportunity to fulfill her vow and perhaps as well to choose mercy. It’s a powerful story with a strong voice at the center, a vividly recreated time period, and one that makes I think the best use of the reworked fairy/folktales that are incorporated into so many of these tales.

The two good stories are also historical pieces. “Phosphorus” follows a young Irish girl who is dying and ever more disfigured due to working with the title product in a match factory. The pace of her decline will seemingly preclude her from seeing the effects of the women’s strike, but magic and the love of a family member, along with a heart-rending sacrifice, lets her live long enough for first a triumphant and then a moving close. The title story that closes the collection, meanwhile, offers up echoes of the first story, as a Jewish girl who has learned to be a witch from her grandmother must flee the pogroms with her sister to New York City. It turns out they have not fled far enough to escape a demon from their homeland. Similar to “Among the Thorns”, the Old World part of the story is vivid and compelling. The middle section sags a little — the language more flat, the plot more trite, the characters more thin — and the final section maybe piggybacks a bit too much on a historical event for its power, though the metaphor presented conveying the idea that the New World has its own demons, worse than those of the Old World and born not of magic and fay creatures but of humans and their systems, is a strong and lingering concept.

A number of stories fell into what I’d call the “solid” category. “Emma Goldman Takes Tea with the Baba Yaga” is an interesting mix of non-fiction and fiction, though it doesn’t feel fully mined for its potential. “Lily Glass” ended the long run of stories I didn’t much care for, and had some nice images, but didn’t feel particularly original. “Alice: A Fantasia” is a nice stylistic and lyrical piece while “Serpents”, probably the most surreal piece in the collection, is expressionistically weird but has some of my favorite sentence-level writing, and I quite liked how it played with so many folk and fairytales. It may have been my favorite of this group.

That left seven stories that either fell flat or I out and out disliked for various reasons, including but not limited to pacing issues, flat language, or being too obvious and/or blunt. I’d say too that overall collection suffers a bit from the stories being a bit too similar in tone, characters, and in their usage of/reference to fairy tales.

I never expect a story collection to nail every piece. I’m thrilled when three-quarters are good to very good, and mostly satisfied when that drops to half. That’s about where I am here with Burning Girls. I don’t think therefore I’d recommend it as a purchase, but I would definitely recommend it as a library book, with my advice being to read the opening and closing stories first (I know, I know, they order them for a reason . . . ), then read the rest in whatever order you want, but not allowing the weaker stories to cause you to put the book down without at least trying the others.

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