Skip to main content

The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night by Jen Campbell

The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night by Jen Campbell {Goodreads}
Published by Two Roads in 2017
Hardback edition; 212 pages

I'm so happy I got to read this. Blending of fact and fiction, this is a fantastical and magical collection yet realist. There is a lot to read between the lines, Campbell doesn't lay it all for the reader because it is up to us to discover all the layers hidden in the stories. Fairy-tales are present throughout the entire collection but I guess that's not really a surprise. I love the way they were used to speak about all humane things, our darkness, our fears but also our hopes. Queerness and deformity are also present. The writing is beautiful and lyrical and worked very well for me.


My favourite stories were: 'Animals' (which opens the collection and it is dark, twisted, animalistic and beautiful), 'Margaret and Mary and the End of the World' (which tackles many issues - eating disorder, mental illness, pedophilia, etc - is almost impossible to name them all but it's a great story about a relationship between a mother and a daughter), 'The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night' (which is definitely my favourite story of the whole collection, written in play format about a couple who wonder about beginnings in the middle of the night; it brought tears to my eyes and had to re-read it immediately after finishing it), 'Aunt Libby's Coffin Hotel' (which speaks about death and about our fear of it), 'Human Satellites' (about a new discovery in the universe and how people react to it) and 'Bright White Hearts' (which is about an aquarium and where we get to explore how the world views deformity).


In in all, The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night is a great short story collection. Of course not all the stories impressed me or rather, I didn't get what they were trying to tell me. Might be the perfect excuse to re-read the collection in the future to keep uncovering its secrets.

Etiquetas:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vintage Classics: Brontë Series

Maybe you don’t know this about me but I collect different edition of Jane Eyre and when I learnt that Vintage was releasing the new Brontë series I just couldn’t say no. 
Post a Comment
KEEP READING >>>

April 2017

And another month goes by. To be fair, this time it didn't fly around for me; it was quite a slow month in general and I spent half of it reading - I can't even believe I have managed to read all of these books -  and half of it studying for University. I'm all caught up with all my courses and I'm ready to start revising for finals which will be at the end of May/beginning of June. I'm still in awe that for once in my life, I've being productive as hell if I say so myself. Hurray! Basically I wrote down all I had to do and I organised it throughout the first three weeks of April. At the same time I told myself I had to read for fun at least 30 minutes every single day in order to avoid being slumpy due to stress. It worked.
Post a Comment
KEEP READING >>>

Welcome to A Day In Bookland!

Hello fellow Bookworms! My name is Noelia. I’m 23 years old and I live in Spain. I’m a Psychology Grad but at the moment I’m studying an English Culture & Literature major. I consider myself quite the Anglophile (a what? You may be wondering… well, an anglophile is basically a fan of English culture. Yep! That’s me). Anyways, I should have studied this one since the beginning instead of Psychology but what would be life without some wrong decisions? Well, the important thing is that I’m studying it now and I’m super happy because I just love it. I would love someday to work in the publishing world to be surrounded by books 24/7. It would be the perfect job for me. My dangerous addiction to reading made me go to YouTube to look up for bookish stuff which is making that addiction even worse now that I think about it (Oops!). Reading has been always a part of my life, since I was a little girl and it has got bigger and bigger the older I get. It is true that YouTube...
Post a Comment
KEEP READING >>>