Wednesday, June 16, 2021

Can't Wait Wednesday/Waiting on Wednesday #377: Shit Cassandra Saw by Gwen E. Kirby

 


Waiting on Wednesday" is a weekly event that had been hosted by Jill over at Breaking the Spine where we spotlighted upcoming releases we are eagerly anticipating. I'm now linking up with "Can't-Wait Wednesday" hosted over at Wishful Endings.


Margaret Atwood meets Buffy in these funny, warm, and furious stories of women at their breaking points, from Hellenic times to today.

Cassandra may have seen the future, but it doesn't mean she's resigned to telling the Trojans everything she knows. In this ebullient collection, virgins escape from being sacrificed, witches refuse to be burned, whores aren't ashamed, and every woman gets a chance to be a radioactive cockroach warrior who snaps back at catcallers. Gwen E. Kirby experiments with found structures--a Yelp review, a WikiHow article--which her fierce, irreverent narrators push against, showing how creativity within an enclosed space undermines and deconstructs the constraints themselves. When these women tell the stories of their triumphs as well as their pain, they emerge as funny, angry, loud, horny, lonely, strong protagonists who refuse to be secondary characters a moment longer. From "The Best and Only Whore of Cym Hyfryd, 1886" to the "Midwestern Girl Is Tired of Appearing in Your Short Stories," Kirby is playing and laughing with the women who have come before her and they are telling herwe have always been this wayYou just had to know where to look.

Shit Cassandra Saw by Gwen E. Kirby is expected to be published January 11th, 2022 by Penguin Books.

Why am I waiting on this book? I like the idea of hearing the stories from these secondary characters who are refusing to remain secondary. And I'm curious about how the stories will appear since some of them are in different formats (ex. Yelp review). I'm intrigued by the book description of Margaret Atwood meets Buffy.

What book are you waiting on this week? Share it or a link in the comments so we can check it out and maybe add it to our TBR lists. Thanks for coming by and Happy Reading!

2 comments:

  1. You had me at Margaret Atwood meets Buffy. This sounds like a great collection of stories. Unique and fun. I want to read this now too. Thank you for sharing, Laura! I hope you enjoy it when you read it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! And thank you for bringing The Return of the Sorceress to my attention. I hope we both enjoy it!

      Delete