Verge
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15
Ratings3
Average rating3
LONGLISTED FOR THE STORY PRIZE Named one of the Best Books of the Year by Bustle and Lit Hub A fiercely empathetic group portrait of the marginalized and outcast in moments of crisis, from one of the most galvanizing voices in American fiction. Lidia Yuknavitch is a writer of rare insight into the jagged boundaries between pain and survival. Her characters are scarred by the unchecked hungers of others and themselves, yet determined to find salvation within lives that can feel beyond their control. In novels such as The Small Backs of Children and The Book of Joan, she has captivated readers with stories of visceral power. Now, in Verge, she offers a shard-sharp mosaic portrait of human resilience on the margins. The landscape of Verge is peopled with characters who are innocent and imperfect, wise and endangered: an eight-year-old black-market medical courier, a restless lover haunted by memories of his mother, a teenage girl gazing out her attic window at a nearby prison, all of them wounded but grasping toward transcendence. Clear-eyed yet inspiring, Verge challenges us with moments of uncomfortable truth, even as it urges us to place our faith not in the flimsy guardrails of society but in the memories held—and told—by our own individual bodies.
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Well that was an experience, not a good one but one nonetheless.
The first couple of stories were pretty decent, the one with the organ trafficking had a splash of body horror and a dash of revenge fantasy which I really enjoyed, sadly it all went downhill afterwards and never really went back up. Most stories had me wondering why they were even written. At the end I feel like I read a gimmicky collection that wanted to be shock porn but settled for being pseudo poetic abnormal sex semi-horror content instead.
Check the trigger warnings if you're going to read this because pretty much all the TWs relating to sex are present.
I don't usually share my reading notes but I think this time they might be the best resume of my reading experience I can give:
1. Okay
2. Pretty good but horror
3. Ehhhh okay
4. Barf
5. At this point I've lost track of the number of stories I've been through. Lots of sex, so far feels like someone who wants to talk about being on the margin but only has a loose connection to or actual experience of being there. Why do you rely on sex for shock value so much, it's vaguely evocative of gore porn content that just uses the story as an excuse for gore imagery...
6. Human resilience on the margins? Where? After a few stories it's more like human survival through apathy.
7. WTF with the hard nipples?
8. Why does it feel like she's SAing the poor brush, I had no desire to explore the sexuality of young teens that way. Comparing a pussy to the mouth of a child?
9. “If you want to save her knock yourself out” ah yes empathy
10. Shut up will you?
11. They don't even have names, pretentious version of gore porn, trauma as entertainment
12. So much references to sex I'm bored with it more than repulsed at this point
13. Why though?
14. Oooookay that might have been interesting if this mess hadn't worn me down.
15. Not another one....
