Sunday, January 29, 2017

Short Story Review - Clover

Short Story - Clover
Writer - Charlie Jane Anders
Published By - Tor Books

 
I didn't expect much when I started reading this short. But despite not reading "All the Birds in the Sky", I enjoyed this story. This is the tell of a gay couple who gets a cat suddenly from mysterious sources, their struggles in their relationship as well as the cat's own struggle to reclaim its identity.

The author is a great story teller and she drags the reader in with her method, and makes them feel for the characters. The focus is on Anwar and Berkley and the author made me interested in each of their individual plights, which is a strong feat considering the length of the work.

The world building is once again done in a rather unorthodox way while keeping the reader guessing at what really is going on. The realistic turmoil of a relationship through its various stages and the emotions all together depicted in this short scope is quite outstanding. And using the cat to make Anwar strong enough to deal with his problems was done quite elegantly.

But despite everything positive I did feel a bit out of the loop due to now having read the book from which this short spawned. And some of the other characters felt a bit out of focus and I found it really hard to actually care for them.

This one gets 3.5 out of 5 stars from me.


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