Review of Victoria V., “Vó Úrsula’s Magical Shop for Soul-Aches”, Luna Station Quarterly 43 (2020): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This issue of LSQ is full of good titles — intriguing ones that draw me in and seem to tell almost as much of a story as the story itself — and this is another one of them.
The titular shop is the backdrop for the lives of cousins Benjamin and Berenice dos Santos — students at the local university involved in all the usual student activities, geometry, activism, surreptitious publication in the free press. The story is a mixture of otherworldly-fantasy (the world they live in could be any world, not ours) and descriptions (such as “The government had promised to fight crime, but much of the violence and fear that haunted the cities came from the so-called law enforcement, as well.”) that feel very much like pointed comments on our own current society.
And I’m also a sucker for the first shy blushes of a queer romance, so thumbs up from me for this story! I would totally read a longer/novel-length story based on these characters.
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