Incendiary Girls by Kodi Scheer

Incendiary Girls.  Stories by Kodi Scheer

Incendiary Girls is a collection of short stories that are unforgettable and non-traditional.  Many of the stories have the thread of medicine running through them as well as some magical or fantastical elements.  Sometimes the stories are disturbing yet for every story I was intrigued and wanted to find out where the author was leading me and how the story would end.

My favorite story is the title story because it is based in Turkey during the Armenian genocide.  When a Camel Breaks Your Heart is odd and funny and was super entertaining.  I also really liked the story Gross Anatomy.  There are eleven beautiful, unsettling, unique and strange stories in this collection.  Give yourself permission to laugh at the oddities and imagine the absurd and just go with it.

I love how the cover is represented in stark black and white and how it reflects the stories inside.   Medicine, illness, sickness is so often portrayed in black and white circumstances.  Either your sick or your not sick but humans and their bodies are anything but ordinary and Scheer explores the human body with a little bit of wonder and a lot of intensity.

I love short stories and try to read at least one a week.  With Incendiary Girls, I read one a day.  I couldn't stop.  Scheer does an excellent job juxtaposing reality with fantasy and having her patients (I mean stories) exhibit fundamental psychological symptoms of the creative variety.  She is a great storyteller.

One word:  Unforgettable.