watermelleon's Reviews (254)

Such a beautiful retelling of the christian creation story; as a lover of origin stories this one is just a delight to read. How did the lamppost get there? who made the wardrobe? how did the white witch come to be? All of it is answered in this book. Such an easy story to read with a lovely narrative voice that flows between the pages.

another lovely short story. rated it a 3 as I much prefer some of Wilde's other works, however this story does have lovely writing style and imagery along with a deep and scarily relevant message.

This was fantastic. As far as short story collections go, I truly enjoyed every single one. Some were certainly better than others (which I think will vary depending on individual opinion), but there were definitely none that I disliked. Some of these stories chilled me to the bone; the best thing about these stories are that they don't supply the same style of thrill over and over again, but weird you out in all sorts of fascinating ways. At times I had to really put this book down and really contemplate what I had read. Part of the thrill is guessing where the source of cruelty is within each tale; although the title may offer some hints, it usually unravels itself in ways you really do not expect.
"Poison" was a fantastic example of this, it seemed very predictable at first why the title was like it was, but towards the end I felt completely astounded as to the horrific power of the title.

the poison wasn't what was within the snake, but was in fact racism!

. Out of all of them, "Genesis and catastophe" probably made me feel the most physically sick, and really cleverly addressed some incredibly interesting philosophical dilemmas. I also Loved "Royal Jelly" in how the story and tension was built up. I went to someone's house who had royal jelly in their handwash and I couldn't even bring myself to use it! "Skin" was also a very disturbing tale with so many deep moral dilemmas.

It was very clear to see Dahl's social criticisms lay, and many are still so relevant today. I'm definitely interested in reading his autobiographies to get full scope on what life experiences he has had to have thoughts on materialism and decadence as so highly criticized throughout his works. I can't wait to also read the rest of his short story works!