Abbreviate

by Sarah Fawn Montgomery

A small collection of small essays, Abbreviate examines how the injustice and violence of girlhood leads women to accept—and even claim—small spaces and stories. In lyric flash prose, Sarah Fawn Montgomery shares a girlhood shaped by neglect and abuse from adults and saved through the communal care of fierce female friends. The essays in this collection probe the girlhood play of Polly Pocket and planetariums, strobe with a sleepover blacklight illuminating teenage magic, and ricochet with the regret and rage of adult women whose lives have been constellated by harm. Full of stars and scars, Abbreviate examines what happens when girls and women are haunted by hunger and self-erasure, asking us to reconsider the space we make for our secrets, shames, and selves.

Genres: Essays

90 pages, Paperback

Published May 8, 2025

Reviews

[three fingered cowgirl · Rating 5 out of 5]

entirely eerie with nostalgia, a read quite heavy you feel your shoulders and heart slump into a recollection of your own past. reading this is necessary, i do believe. i found relation to every essay, which was unfortunate but as well led support to my understanding of what has occurred in my life.

one of my favorite quotes: "i wonder if truth is a star that eventually burns out. i wonder if a woman is a fact or a fiction."

[zoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

solid 4.5 for me. sometimes works about the female experience don’t hit for me as a nonbinary person but, nevertheless, this was a solid book of prose.

my takeaway is damn i hate men and i love women and poetry!!

[Bronwen Griffiths · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brave and stunning collection of flash fiction on the way girls are made to feel small as they become teenagers - as they become 'abbreviated.' Fawn Montgomery exposes the physical, sexual and emotional violence that some men do to girls and women, and the ways in which women either aquiesce or are forced to aquiesce. This is not an easy read and it should make you angry, but not all of it is grim. There are wonderful friendships here, as well as the night sky. As Fawn Montgomery says, 'No one ignores the Milky Way. No one tells the moon what to do. I imagine myself as big as the heavens. I pretend I am so big my stories take up the sky.'

[Victoria Lilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peek into the quiet and often invisible world of girlhood in this beautifully written memoir-in-flash.

Full review: https://independentbookreview.com/202...

[Shilo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A difficult but important read.