I keep referring to this book in my mind (and to other people) as the pretty goblin stories, even though only the first story has goblins in it, and the artwork inside the book before each story is very classy and pretty, if the cover is a little trashy looking.
Three short stories about wanting, really really wanting something more than anything else at all.
Its got kitten eating monsters, otherworldly queens that keep children as pets, and fruit so delicious you would die for it. It is phenomenally beautiful writing, compelling and so evocative.
These stories need to be savoured, one by one, like a some kind of tiny, exquisitely created chocolate.
In the first of these delights, Goblin Fruit, Kizzy wants. She wants to be one of those girls with the swinging hips in the artfully faded denim, one of the pretty, flower scented girls that everyone else wants. But the goblins don't like them popular, and follow the scent of wanting that wafts like a perfume from girls like Kizzy, hungry.
Unlike the other kids at school, Kizzy is well aware of the existence of such creatures, she 'liked the ghosts but not the strangers, because her father made her give up her room for them, and they always left it smelling like feet'. But when the new and very beautiful boy at school shows an interest, all the warnings and tales her grandmother drilled into her fly out the window...
In Spicy Little Curses Such As These a curse is placed on a young girl in India that prevents her from making a sound, for fear of killing those that hear her. This curse was placed on her by a demon in return for the lives of many children countries away.
My favourite story was the last, Hatchling. Truly, truly amazing. I don't think I'm going to try and explain it because I tend to get a bit to excited and muddled trying to choose which bit to talk about first. So I'll just go with intricate, mind blowing, and utterly gorgeous.
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