So, Seanan McGuire is quickly becoming my most read author. She's still a few books under Stephen King (who I've been reading for more than 35 years) and I legit don't even know how much of her stuff I haven't read yet but it feels like a lot. Which is great bc it feels like I will p much always have something new from her to read. Everything she writes may not be an instant favourite, but I can always appreciate what she was going for.

Which is pretty much exactly how I felt about The Proper Thing and Other Stories. There WERE some new favourites, and I DIDN'T love everything, but I at least liked and appreciated where each story was coming from. My lowest rating (one story) was 3½ stars.  I gave seven stories 5 stars (this is actually a lie, my notes for one of them simply say "infinity stars sob sob sob"). I tend to hand out 5s for short stories more easily than I do for novels bc short stories are harder to get right, I think. Those seven 5s equal a whole year's worth of 5s for me for novel-length work.

All of the stories in this collection were written in 2016 or later, so there's a lot of heavyness, sadness, and anger here. This may be why I so thoroughly enjoyed this whole book. I just was telling a friend the other night "honestly, if I let go of the simmering ball of rage at my core, I'd probably drop dead bc spite is all that is holding me together." Many of the stories in this collection speak to the rage I use to keep me going, and I appreciate that.

My Favourites

* "Rest Now, My Dear" - the "infinity stars" story mentioned above. I will always love a love letter to libraries and this one hit me right in the space I occupied as a child.

* "Heart of Straw" - my notes for this one just say "yes yes yes yes yes."

* "The Levee Was Dry" - I read this one while waiting for my kids to finish their activity at the library and could not keep myself from sobbing in public. I hated the *idea* of this story, but it was executed to perfection. Then I read it out loud to my 13y/o the next day bc I needed someone to share in my misery.

* "Under the Sea of Stars" - uh, my notes for this one simply say "goddamn."  When I was telling my kids about it, the 13y/o said "why is it always cannibalism with you?" BECAUSE IT JUST IS, OKAY?

* "Love in the Last Days of a Doomed World" - I desperately need to know what happened next/before. Like, as soon as possible.

* "Belief" - my notes say "gonna have to write a letter about this one," and I am. Another story aimed directly at the heart of who I was when I was small.

* "Sweet as Sugar Candy" - another where I'm dying for more in this world.

Some Further Notes

* "Coafield's Catalog of Available Apocalypse Events" (4½) - "legit ELL OH ELL"

* "Good Night, Sleep Tight" (4½) - "you do not fuck with the Violent Femmes fuckin library, man."

* "File and Forget" (4½) - "yes, moar bureaucratic bullshit and corporate espionage, pls."

* "Come Marching In" (4¾) - "Probably liked this so much more bc of having read 'The Sound of Children Screaming' for the Hugo Readalong earlier this week, which started from a similar place but didn't stick the landing like this did." 

* "Foundational Education" (4½) - "yesssss, more SASSwitches, please and thank you"


As you can see, I genuinely loved this collection overall (which is very rare for me with collections and anthologies), so big thanks to Subterranean Press for the ARC. The limited edition illustrated hardback (ah, shit, I forgot to talk about Carla McNeil's outstanding illustrations) will be out on April 30th and the ebook is available now. 




TL;DR: 105 (total score of all stories) divided by 24 (number of stories) equals 4.375, rounding up to 4½