Difficult Women

A disclaimer: I was not already a Roxane Gay fan when I picked up this collection. I'm still working on Bad Feminist (yay for the personal essays, boo for all of the pop culture crap I don't care about), and her writing wasn't rocking my world or anything. I love short stories, and decided to give this a go. I base my review solely on this collection.

A super solid collection of creative short fiction. The themes were all pretty similar-broken people just surviving any way they can. Honestly, I think the title doesn't work. The stories feature incredibly brave women who the world has tried to break and failed.

I'm going to list my favorite stories here just so I can reference them later:
How ( LOVE this story, it owns empowerment-twins, broken world, freedom)
The Sacrifice: (modern day fairy tale, no sun, had me enthralled)
North Country (hipster twee love story)
La Negra Blanca (so powerful)
Best Features (I will make my daughters read this one)

Twice I finished a story and was immediately put to mind of Oscar Wilde, and once George Saunders. I mean this as the highest compliment.
That said, it loses a star because it is not perfect and there are some “duds” imho. That is par for the course in most story collections. They were not awful, they just look like litter on slick city streets compared to the gems in this collection.