Yellowcake

Hmm. Normally, opening up a book by Margo Lanagan is like dipping your toes into a cool spring laced with diamonds, rubies, and broken doll parts. Beautiful and strange. Yet refreshing. This collection did not impact me the way her other works have, and I am sad. Maybe it's me...it's probably me. I didn't “get” most of the stories in the collection. In fact, I had already begun my research online in order to understand two of them, when I discovered the author's “where these stories started” bit in the back (note, I almost never look in the back of a book until I get there so as not to ruin anything for myself). Even when some of the stories were explained...I still didn't get them. I think I am really and truly crushed to not know what the Fascinator DID to the sisters. What?!? Are they statues? Part of the carousel? How much of what happened in the messed up soldier's head actually happened? Why was that kid's mother dying and how would a wreath stop it? Here I feel I suffered too much weird without even being thrown a bone of sense. It's me, I think, I just hate short stories. This one is not making me change my mind. Why in the hell is it called Yellowcake? I just don't know.