Go into this series of short stories with an open mind! The stories may be weird, but most are interesting and well written! I enjoyed most of the stories, there was only one, (the couple in the Mexican restaurant), that did not resonate. After reading most of the stories, I co-read using the Audio book. If you are struggling with the stories in the book, I recommend trying the audio version, it brings the stories to life, each narrator does a a great job!
The Switchin Tree- historical spin on getting whooped, IFYKYK
Owen- a boy mourning a famous wrestler dying. This one was OK
Triggered- not everyone is truly your friend, lesson learned!
Things I Learned in Caitlin Clarke’s Intro to Acting Class - a gay couple in which one of them time travels, very entertaining, but ending not as satisfying as the rest of the story.
Tournament- Larping tournament run by two friends, has contestants not expected. I enjoyed this one, funny and weird!
Weird Black Girls- a couple post breakup on a trip to Boston with a strange night in Cambridge, he is ever judging but also wants her to love him, they go on a strange trip with a historical figure. My favorite quote came from this story.
Many of the stories reference the times of today, the plight of black people in American, microaggressions and racism. I think this book is a brilliant work addressing those issues through a unique set of short stories.
My only criticism is the title, because most of the stories were from the POV of men, women playing a background role.
Netgalley provided ARC.

Really struggling with the prose of this one. It’s all over the place, and while the story concepts were interesting, I found reading to be a slog. I think the writing style was just a really bad fit for me. Not sharing this review publicly, because I don’t feel like I have enough to say about it to help readers decide if they’ll like this or not.

Very good writing, though perhaps over ornamented, but the speculative fiction was all very heavy, depressing, and as negative racially as possible. For my taste it was too overbearing. I was unable to finish. I do think this will appeal to others, just not to me. As I didn't enjoy it, I will not post my reviews outside of netgalley

I found this collection of stories to be very imaginative and intriguing. I thoroughly enjoyed most of these stories, with the exception of maybe only one or two. Overall the weirdness of this genre bending tales really captivated me and I had a whole lot of fun reading this collection.

What a fun read! It was definitely weird and felt like a fever dream, but that is why I enjoyed it. The story felt fast paced and kept me entertained throughout. I can't wait to read more from this author.

I’m not going to lie, as I was reading this book (a collection of 7 stories), I thought to myself, “how am I going to review this book?!” Because it is OUT THERE. Make no mistake, I mean this in a good way. Elwin Cotman can WRITE. These are highly original, genre bending stories that explore the complexities of the human experience (specifically the black human experience) in a very nuanced and peculiar way. While not heavily supernatural, there are some of those fantasy elements in a few of these stories that really leave you wide eyed and wondering.

This falls into the category of books that stretched my imagination, and I love that feeling. I love when stories take my mind to a place it hasn’t gone before. Take for example, the first story— imagining a tree that has come to life and disciplines children in the Jim Crow era. Excuse me? Or the story about a guy who can transport to his lover’s memories by touching him. Huuhhh??! Now you see what I mean when I say these stories are OUT THERE. And yet they all have an underlying message. It’s not obvious what the author is trying to communicate, but as the reader, I was able to develop my own conclusion on what these short stories say about the black experience. I had a good time thinking and contemplating about these things while reading these stories.

Here’s the thing, I don’t want to give you too much because I think the best approach to these stories is to go in blind and be prepared to use your brain. This isn’t the book to pick up when you just want to escape and use little brain power. Know that these stories are very weird but just enjoy the ride. As with any short story collection, there are some stories that stick out more than others. A few of them are a bit too long. I had trouble getting through the LARPing story. But at the end I was glad I read it. Some of the fantastical elements just seemed out of nowhere and not really connected to their stories. For example, in one of the stories a man is recollecting his past with his ex girlfriend and his hand falls off and runs around the restaurant lol. Like huh?? Lolol. But again, the surprise of these elements really did stretch my imagination and make it a good read for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC of this title.

This was a super uneven collection, and at times a frustrating read. Cotman's stories here get so bogged down in detail at times that it's hard to see the actual plot going on behind all of that (as in the opening story, "The Switchin' Tree"), or throw so many random-seeming details (as in the story that follows the opener, "Reunion", which seemed to start like it was sci-fi, then headed over to some magical realism-adjacent space) that it feels like the author is throwing stuff at the wall hoping something will stick.

Everything feels too long and meandering - these are all packed with too many ideas and could have used more of a succinct touch. By the end I was skimming from story to story, checking to see if there was anything to latch onto that would still be the same story a few pages in.

Weird Black Girls was weird, and I struggled to engage with the voice, and the hooks the author employed at the start of each story. I wanted to like them, and while several of the stories stuck with me, I can't say I actually enjoyed them.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Elwin Cotman’s "Weird Black Girls" is a spellbinding collection of stories that delves deep into the complexities of Black identity, familial relationships, trauma, and the struggle for survival in a world plagued by racism and patriarchy. Each story is a captivating journey that resonates with haunting prose and thought-provoking themes, inviting readers to explore the multifaceted experiences of Black characters navigating a society rife with oppression. Two standout stories, "The Switchin’ Tree" and "Triggered," exemplify Cotman's skillful storytelling and profound exploration of these themes.

In "The Switchin’ Tree," Cotman masterfully weaves together elements of folklore, trauma, and racial injustice to create a narrative that is both visceral and deeply moving. Through the lens of a young Black protagonist grappling with the horrors of abuse and intergenerational trauma, Cotman explores the devastating impact of white supremacy on Black families and communities. The recurring motif of the ominous tree serves as a powerful metaphor for the insidious nature of racism, lurking in the shadows and preying on the innocence of youth.

"Triggered" confronts issues of sexual violence, activism, and complicity within activist circles. Cotman's unflinching portrayal of trauma and its aftermath challenges readers to examine their own biases and complicity in systems of oppression. The story's exploration of the intersectionality of race and gender offers a nuanced perspective on the complexities of activism and the ways in which marginalized communities navigate spaces fraught with danger and betrayal.

The titular story, "Weird Black Girls," culminates in a powerful and enigmatic finale that defies easy interpretation. Through the lens of a mysterious journey into the unknown, Cotman invites readers to contemplate the nature of existence, identity, and the search for meaning in a world fraught with uncertainty. The story's surreal imagery and philosophical underpinnings leave readers with lingering questions and a sense of awe at the depth of Cotman's storytelling prowess.

Across the collection, Elwin Cotman delves into nuanced explorations of masculinity, particularly within the context of Black identity. Through her characters, Cotman presents a multifaceted examination of how societal expectations, trauma, and power dynamics intersect to shape the experiences of Black men. Characters navigate the tension between societal expectations and personal agency, grappling with the need to assert their masculinity while also confronting the limitations imposed by systemic oppression. Through their experiences, Cotman explores themes of vulnerability, resilience, and the quest for self-definition amidst social and cultural pressures.

In conclusion, Elwin Cotman's "Weird Black Girls'' is a remarkable achievement that transcends genre conventions and challenges readers to confront uncomfortable truths about race, identity, and power. With its richly drawn characters, evocative prose, and thought-provoking themes, this collection is a testament to Cotman's talent as a storyteller and a vital contribution to contemporary literature.

📖 Recommended For: Advocates of Racial Justice, Critics of Toxic Masculinity & White Supremacy, Supporters of Intersectional Feminism, Fans of N.K. Jemisin's "The Fifth Season" and the film "Get Out."

🔑 Key Themes: Racial Identity, Intergenerational Trauma, Resilience in Adversity, Collective Resistance, Liberation Through Solidarity, Intersections of Race and Gender, Confronting Power Dynamics.

Content / Trigger Warnings: Child abuse (severe), murder (minor), racism (severe), bullying (minor), alcohol (minor), alcohol abuse (moderate), animal cruelty (moderate), police violence (moderate), ableism (minor), forced institutionalization (minor), substance abuse (minor), abortion (minor), sexual content (moderate), sexual abuse (minor), drug use (severe), homophobia (moderate), pandemic (minor), self-harm (minor), misogyny (moderate), slavery (minor)

This review is based on a digital ARC provided by the publisher.

REVIEW

Weird Black Girls is going to be strange to review. Do I think it was good? Yeah. I mean, I rated it four stars.

Was it what I expected based on the title, cover, and blurb? Not really. The two contemporary stories felt out of place and the focus of the collection wasn’t really on weird Black girls. More on that later.

For now, a brief summary and discussion of each short story:

THE SWITCHIN’ TREE - A Black community is faced with an authoritarian tree that progressively escalates the violence parents visit on their children. This was a remarkably strong start to the collection; I loved the main character (a tomboyish young Black girl), the prose (a little purple at times, but sue me, I liked it), and the bizarre, weird horror that came screaming in at the end.

REUNION - Two friends catch up about their lives while reality shifts around them. “The Switchin’ Tree” is hard to follow up and while I enjoyed the absurd, strange imagery of “Reunion,” the characters fell flat for me.

OWEN - A father deals with his son’s obsessional grief over the death of a wrestler. The first of the two more contemporary, less fantastical short stories. I enjoyed it! The image ||of a father taking his son to the woods to hold a shoe box funeral for a stranger is deeply touching and an image that|| will stick with me for a while.

TRIGGERED - Two toxic friends in an activist community are shitty to each other and everyone around them. The second contemporary story. It’s… fine. Sharp commentary on the ways that identity and activism get weaponized by toxic people and some excellent character work, but the pacing dragged (it’s 50 pages long). I just really wanted it to be over.

THINGS I NEVER LEARNED IN CAITLIN CLARKE’S INTRO TO ACTING CLASS - Two Black men in a relationship discover one can relive the other’s memories from undergrad when they touch. Back to spec fic. This was one of my favorites in the collection–the desperate need for human connection and the desire to be desired and the question of “what if things were different” hit hard.

TOURNAMENT ARC - Two older Black men decide to run a LARP fight at a con, only for multi-versal, cosmic, fantastical entrants to start showing up. A hilarious, sweet, nostalgic reflection on fan culture, anime, and how they can be a haven for Black kids trying to figure themselves out. My stand-out favorite of the collection and the one I’ll still be thinking about in a year.

WEIRD BLACK GIRLS - In an alternate universe where Boston was hit by the Rupture, an upheaval of the earth that thrust the city into the air and lead to a blooming of the bizarre and fantastical, a man and his younger ex-girlfriend take one last trip together. The titular short story, quite long at 100 pages. While I loved the setting, I couldn’t stand the narrator and spent the whole time wishing the POV was from his ex’s point of view.

In a way, Weird Black Girls reminds me of The King in Yellow. The weird, magical, literary short stories rule, while the contemporary stories feel out of place and aren’t as enjoyable.

As mentioned, I liked “Owen.” I feel “Triggered” is fine, even though it’s not my cup of tea. Both are worth a read, but I think they’d have been more enjoyable if I’d gone into them expecting contemporary rather than more weird fantastical spec-fic set up by everything surrounding them. Good stories, just not sure why they’re featured in a collection described as “literary-fantastical hybrid fiction,” y’know?

If you want a short story collection that features weird Black girls, I’d point you elsewhere (for example, to All These Sunken Souls, which has a lot of fantastic short stories about weird Black girls and young women). Despite being titled Weird Black Girls, I’d argue the collection has a far heavier focus on Black men, with Black girls and women almost always being secondary characters.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This collection is certainly worth picking up, purely for “Things I Never Learned in Caitlin Clarke’s Intro to Acting Class” and “Tournament Arc.” If you like not-very-short short stories, “Weird Black Girls,” the titular and final story, is almost 100 pages, while “Triggered,” the second-longest, is 50 pages. While some are indeed on the shorter end (“Reunion” at 23 pages, “Owen” at 21 pages), most of these are the long kind of short story. I look forward to reading more Cotman in the future!

Thank you to Scribner for providing a digital ARC via Netgalley.

Not for me. The stories felt disjointed and forced at times. The writing was not bad but the stories just couldn’t get to me.

Dive into the Weird with Elwin Cotman's "Weird Black Girls"
Mark your calendars, genre fans! Award-winning author Elwin Cotman's highly anticipated collection, "Weird Black Girls," is set to hit shelves on April 16th, 2024. But what can you expect from this cryptic title?

"Weird Black Girls" isn't your typical short story collection. Cotman weaves fantastical elements with the Black experience, resulting in a unique and thought-provoking exploration. Here's a sneak peek at some of the characters and plots that will have you on the edge of your seat:

A town held hostage by a tyrannical tree: Imagine a seemingly idyllic rural community where a powerful tree dictates the lives of its residents, especially the children. This unsettling story promises to explore themes of control and rebellion.

A reunion gone wrong: Two old friends with a complicated past find themselves at a Mexican restaurant where strange occurrences blur the lines between reality and memory. This encounter hints at unresolved conflicts and the complexities of long-term friendships.

Narcissistic troublemakers: In the activist world, two self-absorbed friends wreak havoc with their disruptive personalities. This satirical story could be a hilarious exploration of performative activism and the importance of genuine action.

Living through memories: A detached young man finds himself experiencing the memories of his lover. This mind-bending plot delves into the depths of intimacy and the power of connection.

LARPing with a cosmic twist: Live Action Role Playing takes a fantastical turn as a seemingly ordinary LARPing session takes an unexpected turn towards the extraordinary. This story promises a thrilling blend of fantasy and the unexpected.

These are just a few glimpses into the weird and wonderful world Elwin Cotman creates in "Weird Black Girls." With its blend of social commentary, speculative fiction, and humor, this collection promises to be a must-read for fans of innovative storytelling.

So, get ready to be surprised, unsettled, and entertained when "Weird Black Girls" arrives on April 16th!

Agh, I got so lost in this one.
I really wanted to like it but I have to DNF for my sanity. I am still really thankful to Scribner, Elwin Cotman, and Netgalley for granting me advanced access, but it just wasn't for me.

Lots of potential here, but felt like it needed one or two really solid edits -- some stories seemed to shift style, others went on too long, others felt anti-climatical, others didn't make sense. I only really like to review stuff I like or love, and this fell short of both for me, sadly. I'll still read Cotman's next work, as there's an interesting voice here -- it's just a bit buried beneath a chaotic tone I didn't connect to.

This is an eclectic blend of short stories that dabble in what seemed to be random, bizarre scenarios. I found the collection to be a bit uneven and clunky: Some stories were stronger and (much) longer than others, some had open, unsatisfying endings (my opinion only), and even more puzzling, there were only a couple that featured Black girls – hence the collection’s title is somewhat misleading.

I “enjoyed” (the term is used lightly as the story is quite disturbing, but engaging) the first story well enough. This story (the Switchin’ Tree) as well as a few others were laced with content or references via character dialogue/scenarios to varying degrees of black pathology, racial stereotypes, brutality against black bodies. For example, The Switchin’ Tree leverages the legacy of whippings to keep a town's black residents in line. These whippings are invoked by an evil confederate spirit that inhibits and possesses the minds of the Black adults to use its branches to issue brutal, flesh--tearing punishments to their children under the guise of “corrective action” to instill obedience. The violence is hard to read and may trigger some readers who may have been reared in households that leveraged severe corporal punishment.

The other stories simply fell short for me – I felt compelled to push through them to give a fair review. The author’s creativity was evident, but I thought too many were overly written to arrive at open endings; others I just could engage well enough to appreciate what the author intended with the story. Granted, a myriad of topics was presented and the stories were buoyed by heavy doses of magical realism and altered realities, etc. No doubt, others will appreciate and celebrate this collection more than I did.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

One of the great skills in life, I have found as an adult, is knowing when you're not part of a conversation. Sometimes you're allowed to sit in on the conversation while your friend and their sibling talk about family stuff, but that doesn't mean you're part of the family, it just means you're here for it. A lot of the stories in Weird Black Girls are very much in that category: am I actually part of the conversation about the use of violent punishment in Black American families as an attempt to ward off white violence from Black children and/or a reflection of white violence through the parents, refracted through a fantastical lens? I sure am not. That is someone else's conversation I am sitting here listening to. And while these stories are not all that specifically, a lot of them touch on themes that are not really mine to dig into. It's not "I'm not the target audience for this" in the sense of "I don't appreciate this work," because I did appreciate this work. It's "I'm not the target audience for this" in the sense of "I am literally not the person being addressed here." But I can still stand by and find it interesting.

What I can say is that this is a short story collection with a great deal of range. The voices of the characters are distinct, and their settings and speculative elements vary extremely. Whether they're exploring a Boston that jutted suddenly into the sky in an alternate history or running a convention LARP tournament that's suddenly populated by fantastical figures from anime, each character has their own voice, their own yearnings and grudges and firmly situated milieu that are totally absorbing. There's big thematic stuff here, but there's also the tiny finely drawn characterization that keeps me around for the theme to have a chance to sink in. The shape of the speculative conceits is never "oh, another one of those" but always firmly his own. Highly recommended.

This is a collection of short stories focusing on the black experience, which is why I thought it would be interesting. Some of the stories were interesting, and the writer is talented, but it felt as though I was only reading parts of stories. People who enjoy reading "slice of life" stories will enjoy this. Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this

I love a good weird story! Here are several weird stories in one collection. The stories were very entertaining and the writing is brilliant.

With a powerful voice comes powerful stories. I could not put this book down. This is a voice of today that must be heard!

3. 5 Stars.

This is a hard one to review. This is a collection of stories, several I really liked and a few I lost all interest in and felt forced to read.

Let's start with the good. This collection of stories ranges in emotion from educational, emotional, reflective, to funny, and fascinating. There were stand out stories like The Switching Tree, Reunion, Caitlin Clarke, and Owen that gave me Black Mirror vibes. I would love to see them adapted.

Then there was Triggered and Weird Black Girl. They seemed to drag and centered on liberal activism and race. But the tone was obnoxious vs insightful.

What drew me to this book was the cover and the title. Weird Black Girls: Stories. However, a majority of the stories didn't feature black women as MCs or at all. The first story The Switching Tree did have a black POC and the story was enjoyable and weird. But that was the only one that matched the title.

I'm not suggesting that the lack of Black FMCs in the collection was an issue, it just didn't fit and left me a little confused by the title choice.