Review of Christine Hanolsy, “Festival,” Small Wonders no. 3 (September 2023): 7-8 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was a lovely and thoughtful take on maintaining cultural traditions as an immigrant.
REVIEW: “Upon What Soil They Fed” by Jennifer Mace
Review of Jennifer Mace, “Upon What Soil They Fed,” Flash Fiction Online (March 2023): 20-22 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was a creepy little story about the unexpected things a door-to-door salesman might encounter.
(First published in Syntax & Salt January 2020).
REVIEW: “Wonderful Wounds Await You” by Marisca Pichette
Review of Marisca Pichette, “Wonderful Wounds Await You,” Flash Fiction Online (March 2023): 16-19 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was an interesting story which was a “not for me” one because of its use of second-person narration. If this doesn’t bother you, then you’ll probably enjoy it (unless body horror isn’t your thing.)
REVIEW: “Power is Love in the Devil’s Eye” by Dafydd McKimm
Review of Dafydd McKimm, “Power is Love in the Devil’s Eye,” Flash Fiction Online (March 2023): 11-15 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Salacious, graphic, and humorful, but unfortunately rather too relentlessly heteronormative for my tastes.
REVIEW: “About Her Bones So Bleak and Bare” by Matthew F. Amati
Review of Matthew F. Amati, “About Her Bones So Bleak and Bare,” Flash Fiction Online (March 2023): 7-10 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Death of a child.
This story is gruesome, violent, and haunting.
REVIEW: “The Fox Spirit’s Retelling” by Wen Wen Yang
Review of Wen Wen Yang, “The Fox Spirit’s Retelling,” Flash Fiction Online (May 2023): 20-22 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was a lovely little ghost tale, full of hauntings and spirits and stories that never get fully told.
(Originally published in Remapping Wonderland: Classic Fairytales Retold by People of Color, January 2021.)
REVIEW: “The Invisible” by Kurt Newton
Review of Kurt Newton, “The Invisible,” Flash Fiction Online (May 2023): 16-19 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This story can be summed up “coping mechanisms for past trauma gone wrong”. At first, the idea seems great, but knowing that this issue of FFO is all about horror, you also know from the start that things are all going to go wrong. It was delicious finding out how.
REVIEW: “Skin the Teeth” by Sarah Cline
Review of Sarah Cline, “Skin the Teeth,” Flash Fiction Online (May 2023): 11-14 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Gory, creepy, disturbing: those three words sum up this story. It’s crazy cat lady taken to an entirely differently level!
REVIEW: “Unexplained” by H. V. Patterson
Review of H. V. Patterson, “Unexplained,” Flash Fiction Online (May 2023): 7-10 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Patterson’s story is the opening one in a horror-themed issue of FFO, and while the immediate scene is of a woman who has suddenly lost a finger, this isn’t a story about gore and body horror. Rather, the terror is much more psychological: No doctor believes that she ever used to have 10 fingers.
I’m pretty sure every woman (and probably many men) has had the experience of telling someone about something that has happened to her, medical or otherwise, and not being believed. Patterson taps into this fear deftly, and the ending is a killer.
REVIEW: “Forest-Sister” by Avril Mulligan
Review of Avril Mulligan, “Forest-Sister,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Every week when his mother goes to the market, Tom’s father sends him and his younger sister, Bib, into the forest, to find their half-sister, their forest-sister; and every day Tom has to live with the debt he owes his forest-sister.
There is a darkness to this story, which comes through in chips and pieces through the beautiful language that Mulligan deploys. It’s a story about the complexities and complications of familial relationships, and desire, and debt, and it will leave a weight upon your heart when you read it.
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