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Favorite Monster: Stories
Winner of the 2011 Autumn House Fiction Prize, judged by Stewart O'Nan. "By all rights, these comic tales, with their cyclopses and serial killers, werewolves and writers, medusas and managers, ought to collapse into lighthearted whimsy. Instead they unfold into objects of extraordinary beauty and darkness, rendered in prose that can turn on a dime from the deadpan to the profound. Sharma Shields is a cutup, a sneak, and a badass -- she will crack you up with these charming beasts, and then, in a stage whisper, reveal who the real monster is. (Hint: it's you.)" -- J. Robert Lennon
144 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2012
4 people are currently reading
134 people want to read
About the author
Sharma Shields
9 books186 followersSharma Shields is the author of a short story collection, Favorite Monster, and two novels, The Sasquatch Hunter’s Almanac and The Cassandra. Sharma’s short stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Electric Lit, Catapult, Slice, Slate, Fairy Tale Review, Kenyon Review, Iowa Review, Fugue, and elsewhere and have garnered such prizes as the 2020 PNBA Award, 2016 Washington State Book Award, the Autumn House Fiction Prize, the Tim McGinnis Award for Humor, a Grant for Artist Projects from Artist Trust, and the A.B. Guthrie Award for Outstanding Prose. She received her B.A. in English Literature from the University of Washington (2000) and her MFA from the University of Montana (2004). Sharma runs a small press, Scablands Books, and is a contributing editor for Moss. A current employee of Wishing Tree Books in Spokane, Sharma has worked in independent bookstores and public libraries throughout Washington State. She lives with her husband (writer and graphic novelist Simeon Mills) and their two children.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
April 29, 2012
You know how sometimes a writer takes an idea you've day-dreamed on for years, and expands on the idea until it breaks wide open in a way that never occurred to you. A writer who can take fantastical creatures and lay bare the truths of humanity hidden beneath their fur and wings. That is what I found in Favorite Monster. While reading I laughed, I teared up, I reflexively gasped and covered my mouth with my hand. Deceptively simple stories with amazing emotional resonance.
April 18, 2025
Maybe I am being generous here, maybe it was just a month and I needed a win. Maybe this is truly that good. But yeah, 5* it is. I absolutely adored Shield's debut novel "The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac" and this reads very similar. Her stories hover somewhere between sad and disturbing, sometimes both at the same time. They are definitely in the Horror ballpark but I wouldn't use the word scary, I would use unsettling though. And incredibly creative.
Each story here has a monster. Sometimes it's the obvious one, like a Cyclops, a Werewolf or Medusa. But not every monster is that easy to spot and not every monster is the villain of the story. Sometimes the monster is just the manager. Forgot to mention that most of these have a sense of humor, naturally on the darker side. And all of these tales have Shields incredible writing, she just gets into these characters within a few sentences and shapes a forlorn look into their existence. Often we find ourselves in very mundane settings: suburban front yards, office jobs, supermarket baggers, teens and their first job at the fair. Jealous siblings, lonely people, butchers, writers. Shields puts it all into fascinating context with fascinating questions, moral dilemmas or just morally way off center situations. She asks what makes a monster a monster and what Horror fan wouldn't want to explore that?
I am not sure I want to go for Shield's most recent novel since it is a Cassandra retelling in a WWII setting which is not my playing field but I hope she puts out something closer to these in the future. None of these I would rank below a 3*, I had the best time reading through and am not sure how to narrow it down to my favorites now.
My top 6:
6) Pulchritudinous
5) Sunshine and the Predator
4) Brains and Beauty
3) Souvenirs
2) Neighborhood
1) The Writer's Werewolf
The One I'd skip (if there had to be one)
"The Tylenol Cheerleader" (only because it was too short too fully shine, imho)
Each story here has a monster. Sometimes it's the obvious one, like a Cyclops, a Werewolf or Medusa. But not every monster is that easy to spot and not every monster is the villain of the story. Sometimes the monster is just the manager. Forgot to mention that most of these have a sense of humor, naturally on the darker side. And all of these tales have Shields incredible writing, she just gets into these characters within a few sentences and shapes a forlorn look into their existence. Often we find ourselves in very mundane settings: suburban front yards, office jobs, supermarket baggers, teens and their first job at the fair. Jealous siblings, lonely people, butchers, writers. Shields puts it all into fascinating context with fascinating questions, moral dilemmas or just morally way off center situations. She asks what makes a monster a monster and what Horror fan wouldn't want to explore that?
I am not sure I want to go for Shield's most recent novel since it is a Cassandra retelling in a WWII setting which is not my playing field but I hope she puts out something closer to these in the future. None of these I would rank below a 3*, I had the best time reading through and am not sure how to narrow it down to my favorites now.
My top 6:
6) Pulchritudinous
5) Sunshine and the Predator
4) Brains and Beauty
3) Souvenirs
2) Neighborhood
1) The Writer's Werewolf
The One I'd skip (if there had to be one)
"The Tylenol Cheerleader" (only because it was too short too fully shine, imho)
July 23, 2012
It is about time that someone took on the challenge of writing about the trials and tribulations of cyclops love.
February 13, 2024
Whimsical horror.
“But for me, it’s hard to be passionate about something that someone else has already coveted” (33).
“Bernard remained with us…his stone sneakers rooted firmly in a patch of dirt that Mom decorated with tulips and irises, his cruel little face wearing its perennial pursed, teasing expression”(57).
“‘She’s younger than you and more sensitive,’ Mom said. But what she meant was ‘She’s stupider than you and more attractive’”(68).
“I daydreamed about how our children would come out of our mansion squinting into the light, all wormy and bone-white, bitter and smart”(69).
“We bonded over our interest and we alienated outsiders with it. That is the meaning of camaraderie”(78).
“He smiled at me through his painted-on frown. He looked like the reason people are afraid of clowns”(87).
“All of the tops of the flowers had been chopped off in preparation for winter, and the remaining stems were like bareheaded anorexics swaying drunkenly in the breeze”(129).
“But for me, it’s hard to be passionate about something that someone else has already coveted” (33).
“Bernard remained with us…his stone sneakers rooted firmly in a patch of dirt that Mom decorated with tulips and irises, his cruel little face wearing its perennial pursed, teasing expression”(57).
“‘She’s younger than you and more sensitive,’ Mom said. But what she meant was ‘She’s stupider than you and more attractive’”(68).
“I daydreamed about how our children would come out of our mansion squinting into the light, all wormy and bone-white, bitter and smart”(69).
“We bonded over our interest and we alienated outsiders with it. That is the meaning of camaraderie”(78).
“He smiled at me through his painted-on frown. He looked like the reason people are afraid of clowns”(87).
“All of the tops of the flowers had been chopped off in preparation for winter, and the remaining stems were like bareheaded anorexics swaying drunkenly in the breeze”(129).
July 26, 2016
We are all monsters, at least according to Sharma Shields new book, Favorite Monster. In her first collection of short fiction, Shields uses cyclopes, werewolves, and serial killers to stand in for the most inexplicable aspects of humanity. Even Big Foot makes an appearance. (Not surprisingly Shields is a Washington native.) In these startling, tender and often side-splitting stories, both the dark side and the beauty of the human race are magnified by the parade of creatures that appear across these fourteen stories. But the true “monsters” are usually not the savage creatures but the everyday people who come into contact with them.
In the collection's first story, “The McGurgle Account,” the narrator Carol, a young PR account manager, has a fling with her new co-worker—a Proust-quoting Cyclops. But as their affair unfolds, we learn Carol has hidden ugliness. A habitual liar and commitment phobe, she sees herself, in many ways, as more fiendish than the Cyclops. When she wakes up in his cave after their one night together, she thinks, “What fairy tale had I presumed would happen? That I would sleep with him and find upon awakening that he had been transformed? That he was a handsome two-eyed prince? […] That I was an honest person finding love and beauty in the monstrous?”
But no one's morality in Sharma Shield's world is black and white, and in the end Carol finds sympathy and understanding when she least expects it, “a great eye penetrating [her] lies and observing the goodness within [her],” much like the narrator in “The One” who falls in love with a set of enchanted dentures, or Nicky in “Writer's Werewolf” who inspires a werewolf to write a novel about his hardships. Mystical creatures can be ineffably beautiful, penetrating our deepest needs as well as our deepest fears.
Shields, winner of the Tim McGinnis Award for Humor and the A.B. Guthrie Award for Outstanding Prose, writes first lines that shoot into the weirdness of the story. Some highlights include, “We were all surprised when Brian hired the Cyclops,” “Last year my husband began to shrink,” and “In junior high I shared my first kiss with a boy who wore a prophetic glass eye.” Her use of direct, open sentences, part of her dead-pan sense of humor, portray these oddities as part of normal life.
Not all the stories in Favorite Monster fall into this magical realism category. In fact, the most horrifying monsters appear in the more realistic stories. The shocking moments of an involuntary manslaughter at an amusement park or a drunk prank gone wrong at a pool party can haunt dreams more than any ghost. In reading these pages, the reader will plead against the inevitable tragedies that demonstrate that even the most seemingly innocent among us can behave like fiends.
Sharma Shields reveals the bare truths of humanity in Favorite Monster, which won the 2011 Autumn House Fiction Prize. Fans of George Saunders and Todd James Pierce will appreciate her hilarious, madcap world. Just don't be afraid if you catch a glimpse of yourself some of her monsters, especially the ones that wear a human face.
In the collection's first story, “The McGurgle Account,” the narrator Carol, a young PR account manager, has a fling with her new co-worker—a Proust-quoting Cyclops. But as their affair unfolds, we learn Carol has hidden ugliness. A habitual liar and commitment phobe, she sees herself, in many ways, as more fiendish than the Cyclops. When she wakes up in his cave after their one night together, she thinks, “What fairy tale had I presumed would happen? That I would sleep with him and find upon awakening that he had been transformed? That he was a handsome two-eyed prince? […] That I was an honest person finding love and beauty in the monstrous?”
But no one's morality in Sharma Shield's world is black and white, and in the end Carol finds sympathy and understanding when she least expects it, “a great eye penetrating [her] lies and observing the goodness within [her],” much like the narrator in “The One” who falls in love with a set of enchanted dentures, or Nicky in “Writer's Werewolf” who inspires a werewolf to write a novel about his hardships. Mystical creatures can be ineffably beautiful, penetrating our deepest needs as well as our deepest fears.
Shields, winner of the Tim McGinnis Award for Humor and the A.B. Guthrie Award for Outstanding Prose, writes first lines that shoot into the weirdness of the story. Some highlights include, “We were all surprised when Brian hired the Cyclops,” “Last year my husband began to shrink,” and “In junior high I shared my first kiss with a boy who wore a prophetic glass eye.” Her use of direct, open sentences, part of her dead-pan sense of humor, portray these oddities as part of normal life.
Not all the stories in Favorite Monster fall into this magical realism category. In fact, the most horrifying monsters appear in the more realistic stories. The shocking moments of an involuntary manslaughter at an amusement park or a drunk prank gone wrong at a pool party can haunt dreams more than any ghost. In reading these pages, the reader will plead against the inevitable tragedies that demonstrate that even the most seemingly innocent among us can behave like fiends.
Sharma Shields reveals the bare truths of humanity in Favorite Monster, which won the 2011 Autumn House Fiction Prize. Fans of George Saunders and Todd James Pierce will appreciate her hilarious, madcap world. Just don't be afraid if you catch a glimpse of yourself some of her monsters, especially the ones that wear a human face.
February 26, 2013
Favorite Monster: Stories – 3 – 2653
The best stories end with a twist, a deserved twist. // Favorite Monster: Stories// is an anthology of stories all centered around monsters of different types. Shields looks at the definition of monsters in our society, and what it takes to be considered a monster. There are a number of legendary monsters that pop up every so often, but in general they provide a greater contrast to what we think of as monsters, and sometimes show that having visible fangs doesn’t make you a monster as much as what is in your heart.
Although the stories are great Shields tells the stories in lit major mode. The good news is that he doesn’t waste words, and that the words she chooses do as much work as they possibly can and that the stories are right to the point. However, at the same time this means that the stories seem a little short and that a point that needs to be better explained is rushed through; sometimes writing isn’t about the race but the pace. Nonetheless, for those looking for a good afternoon read this is definitely a book to check out.
As originally written by Jamais Jochim for http://www.portlandbookreview.com/
The best stories end with a twist, a deserved twist. // Favorite Monster: Stories// is an anthology of stories all centered around monsters of different types. Shields looks at the definition of monsters in our society, and what it takes to be considered a monster. There are a number of legendary monsters that pop up every so often, but in general they provide a greater contrast to what we think of as monsters, and sometimes show that having visible fangs doesn’t make you a monster as much as what is in your heart.
Although the stories are great Shields tells the stories in lit major mode. The good news is that he doesn’t waste words, and that the words she chooses do as much work as they possibly can and that the stories are right to the point. However, at the same time this means that the stories seem a little short and that a point that needs to be better explained is rushed through; sometimes writing isn’t about the race but the pace. Nonetheless, for those looking for a good afternoon read this is definitely a book to check out.
As originally written by Jamais Jochim for http://www.portlandbookreview.com/
April 14, 2019
I loved this collection of short stories for its unique characters and it's amazing heart. Shields gives us familiar settings, but populates them with characters we don't expect. Then she lets us see those characters in new and surprising ways. There's the opening story about the Cyclops working in a soul-killing office job. Or the very disturbing but compelling story of a serial killer (one of the only monsters in the book that, sadly, does not stem from mythology.) Shields brings humor and a soulful understanding of what it is to be different to these wonderful stories.
http://scribbleandhum.blogspot.com/20...
http://scribbleandhum.blogspot.com/20...
May 23, 2012
I do not normally enjoy short stories, so I confess that I had low expectations! However I was very much entranced (laughed out loud in public )by these unconventional, fantasy-sci-fi nuggets of amazing off-beat out-there humour! The perfect adjectives escape me! My Favourite story was the last one.Spokanites will be especially amused!
Great job Sharma! I loved your book!
Great job Sharma! I loved your book!
July 18, 2012
Great book. I'd read a story and it would stick with me all day. The stories were all thought provoking and quirky.
August 2, 2012
AWESOMEST. BOOK. EVER.
January 24, 2013
Clever and entertaining short stories. Very fun to read!
May 10, 2020
The pandemic is a wonderful time to tackle short story collections for already short attention spans. I love this collection. Sharma Shields might get buried under the pile of all of those similar whimsical short story writers that I love, but to me, Shields is just as good: Kelly Link, Karen Russell, George Saunders, Julia Elliott, and a billion other writers of the type. Stories with that touch of the whimsical or fantastical covering an underlying darkness. In the case of Shields, usually featuring cryptids or mythical beasts in everyday situations (like Medusa in the FANTASTIC 'Brains and Beauty') but sometimes some humanish beasts acting monstrously. Either way, the stories are lovely. 'Neighborhood' is a short example of her style, somehow I'm unable to find it online, though one of my favorites. I'm glad I found this collection and the writing of Sharma Shields in general. Every story is a treat, though I wish some had been longer. I will be a fan as long as she is writing!
March 3, 2025
These stories are not what I was expecting, but in the best way possible. They are fun and entertaining stories, forcing the reader to see "monsters" in a whole new light.
May 18, 2015
This is the award-winning debut short story collection from the fabulous author of The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac. What fun! Shields really shines when she gives mythological "monsters" humanity: they have jobs, marry humans, are not really accepted by the mainstream, and they never lose their true nature. Those stories were my favorites in this collection.
September 17, 2016
I loved these short stories!
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews