Book Review: The Melancholy of Mechagirl

 

The Melancholy of Mechagirl

Author: Catherynne M. Valente
Publisher: Haikasoru; Original ed. edition
Publish Date: July 16, 2013
Book Rating 5/5
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Publisher's Description 

A woman who dreams of machines. A paper lantern that falls in love. The most compelling video game you’ve never played and that nobody can ever play twice. This collection of Catherynne M. Valente’s stories and poems with Japanese themes includes the lauded novella “Silently and Very Fast” and the award-nominated “Thirteen Ways of Looking at Space/Time,” and “Ghost of Gunkanjima”—which originally appeared in a book smaller than your palm, published in a limited edition of twenty-four. 

Also included are two new stories: the semiautobiographical metafictional, and utterly magical “Ink, Water, Milk” and the cinematic, demon-haunted “Story No.6.”

“I finished this collection late one night and feel asleep and had what felt like a year’s worth of intense dreams.”
—Charles Yu, author of Sorry Please Thank You

Book received:  Own

Why I Picked it up: I have read her before. I knew what I was getting into . Or so I thought. This was a new view on the world. It also dealt  with isolation.  To be alone in a crowd.

Why I finished it: This style of writing allowed for understating of the unknown. The stories with in stories are a hallmark of her writing and pulled you deeper to comprehend oneself with in the novel. 

Who I would give it to: Anyone who feels like an outsider.