3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Hell has no fury like a woman scorned", June 3, 2008
This review is from: Getting Even: Revenge Stories (Paperback)
These seventeen tales share the title theme as women avenge affronts and insults perpetrated mostly by men although in a few cases a couple is the cause and target. The short story collection is fun as the audience compares the means and opportunities used by each of the scorned female; motives are provided throughout and make important segments of all the stories, but it is how the woman gets even that makes this an engaging compilation; although I wonder why my husband chose a business trip at this time as he kept mumbling "Be Very Afraid" as "Hell Is Where the Heart Is". He took some solace in that he is an Aquarius and not an Aries. This is a fun compilation as "Hell has no fury like a woman scorned".
Harriet Klausner
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You won't sleep for your brain overworking on getting even, May 16, 2010
This review is from: Getting Even: Revenge Stories (Paperback)
If you want some ideas on how to get even, then this is the book to speculate over.
You'll not go through another day wondering what to do when a partner or lover gets up on the wrong side of you for the tools are all here: even the motives and answers.
Initially when I'd read these stories, I wondered how the author would tackle the idea of imaginary tales for adults. The first story answered my question and following on from that, I saw how each story came alive with 'real life' situations and complications, with a vengeance.
There's one with the Rumpelstilkskin character and a few others you'd recognise briefly, for the story is more of a moral tale for adults with an ascorbic twist rather than for adults looking to find an elf or a pixie at the end of the garden. Instead of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or Cinderella's Stepmother, we come across employees or lovers who get their own back in such a way that you think, 'that was revenge' with an authentic taste of such pleasure, it's startling and definitely not seen in the traditional sense. The title suggests something more 'extravagant', more explicit, but the eroticism comes in subtle undertones, tinged with biting humour, nicely portrayed.
It's like reading a 'to get' back list from an ex-partner or a soon to be ex-lover who'd meticulously mete out their 'revenge' ambush so concisely, you'd be led to believe they'd been planning it for a good while before teeth gnashingly hitting out, with different levels of success. The thought at the back of the reader's mind is how the situation is going to pan out and will it be sweet revenge or complete disaster. 8 out of 10 times, the avenger comes away smiling.
A caustic look at relationships, written in a style that makes you forget you're reading a fairy tale and the deep dark insinuations of love and sex, peppered with certain humour and flair makes you look at life, sexual relationships and laughter, much differently afterwards. On reading each story you think, 'wasn't the outcome I had pictured in my mind's eye and took me by complete surprise; very different!'.
A really good 'almanac' for those who want more ideas on how to avenge themselves on cheating partners or ones who conveniently fail to remember they are just as human, as the next person.
You'll never look back and say, 'I should have done that' or 'why didn't I think of that?' and you'll come away wondering why you didn't read this, at times, sarcastically humourous yet dark outlook on relationships, when you'd felt like getting your claws out and shredding even the shredder to bits - if that was physically possible.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Revenge Made Boring, August 3, 2008
This review is from: Getting Even: Revenge Stories (Paperback)
Most multi-author anthologies I've read tend to follow a bell curve: a few really good stories, a few fairly bad stories, and the vast majority somewhere in the middle -- decent enough reads that leave no lasting impression. Unfortunately, this one doesn't meet my bell curve model, with more than its fair share of duds and snoozers. I picked it up because I have a weakness for revenge fantasies, having been done hard by a few times in the course of an otherwise comfortable life. However, what the title, subtitle, and cover copy fail to mention is that these are exclusively stories about females taking revenge. There's nothing wrong with that as a theme, I just wish it had been explicitly stated. Oddly enough, in looking back at the seventeen stories (I read the book several months ago), my two favorite are the two written by men.
Granted, one of these is Niall Griffiths, whose prose sensibilities usually leave an impression -- and his suicide-turned-zombie revenger is simple but effective stuff. The other is "Dolls, Revenge, Dolls Again" by Chris Dunning, a writer I'd not previously encountered. As the title hints at, the story is set amidst a group of toy dolls, albeit ones with personalities and vendettas of their own to pursue. The other two stories that left a trace of an impression were Umi Sinha's "Parvati," which strays into bizarre turf with it's strange human/monkey baby, and Vivki Hendricks' brief reverse-rape fantasy, which is just weird enough to be interesting. Alas, the other thirteen stories are pretty blah. This is probably because, for the most part, the men in them are straw figures and thus aren't very interesting as objects of retribution. Most are husbands or lovers who are cliches of the worst kind of behavior, so that they are little more than suitable targets for the heroines of each story. In Josie Kimber's "A Cake Story" and Tara Ison's "Wig," the targets are fellow women, but even then, there isn't a great deal of psychological depth to the motivations.
Of course, tastes vary, and it may be that female readers (especially women who've been scorned) will find this anthology much more satisfying than I did.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
