The Girl Wakes: Stories

by Carmen Lau, Christina Collins (Illustrator)

Find out more at Alternating Current: tinyurl.com/girlwakes.

Dark, strange, lyrical, and full of frustrated desire and whimsy, Carmen Lau’s debut collection of stories paints a vivid picture of femininity in the clutches of fantasy, reflecting the brutality of growing up a girl and challenging readers to rethink fairy tales as they’ve always known them. Within, you’ll find a tender heart, a painful core, and a paradoxically disastrous and beautiful coming-of-age of every and any girl, told through fairy tales that mirror real life and are at once contemporary and timeless. Joining the ranks of Angela Carter, Kate Bernheimer, and Allyse Near, Lau weaves tales of a girl who is too fantastical to be real and too real to be fantasy.

“A beautifully vicious first collection of retrofitted fairy tales, with whip-smart swerves, darkly funny moments, and razor-sharp language. Like Angela Carter meets Let the Right One In with a dash of Lady Vengeance tossed in for good measure.”
—Brian Evenson, author of Windeye and ALA-RUSA Award-winner Last Days

Genres: Short Stories, Ebooks, Fiction, Fairy Tales

154 pages, Paperback

First published March 8, 2016

About the author

Carmen Lau has had stories published in Catapult, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Fairy Tale Review, and other journals. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from UC-Davis. Her story, “Nothing Has Changed about Me,” was chosen as one of Wigleaf’s Top 50 Very Short Fictions, and her story, “Ghost,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. The Girl Wakes is the winner of the Electric Book Award and is the author’s first book.

Reviews

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lau is a very talented writer. Able to bend the traditional fairy tale plot into complex narratives that make modern statements on feminism, childhood, relationships, and the basic vulnerability of all humans. Filled with queens, and wolves, and knives, and spoons, all of these short stories, no matter how brief, have something important to say. Beautifully produced as well with a unique dingbat for each story, which gives the book more of a fairy tale feel.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

I blurbed this book, and mean every word: “Haunting and beautiful, Carmen Lau’s collection reads like a fever-dream of all your familiar childhood tales. These stories are at once contemporary and timeless, intertwining modernity and the world of the ever-after with deliriously powerful prose. Readers may need a trail of breadcrumbs or a ball of twine to find their way back to reality—The Girl Wakes is mesmerizing.”

[Beachesnbooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this. Review to come.

[Jennifer Pullen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strange and lovely, dark retellings of fairy tales, and new tales, in the tradition of Angela Carter.

[Leah Angstman · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can find the book here.

I am the editor of this collection of short stories, but let me tell you why I chose, edited, and published it: Carmen Lau's writing is at once delicate and biting, soft and brutal, demure and harsh, and she masters that juxtaposition in a way that few others can. This is not just a book of fairy tales; it is a true book of issues, from feminism to coming-of-age to schizophrenia to bullying to body stereotypes to coming-out to familial problems to society's ideas of right and wrong, all told with the veil of the once-upon-a-time narrative that allows for distancing and objectivity in lieu of overemotional sentimentalism, while still maintaining a warmth to the prose that is just fantastic. Carmen Lau has captured the voice and the style uniquely and perfectly, and is sure to be a name to look out for in the crosshairs of fantasy and literary fiction.

[Tabitha Blankenbiller · Rating 5 out of 5]

A coming-of-age story told in mesmerizing layers of tall tales, fantasies and horror stories. This collection is unlike any I've picked up, and creates a whole portrait of adolescent longing, dark romance and long-simmering, terrifying desire. Lau breaks through with this collection as a writer who will enchant and horrify in turns, reminiscent of Matt Bell in "In The House Upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods."

[Steph Post · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gutsy and startling. Reading The Girl Wakes is like slipping into a dark dream. These weaving, interconnected stories explore the true, violent and uncompromising nature of the girl in the fairytale. An absolutely gorgeous collection. And the illustrations are brilliant!

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love these stories! They are dark, surreal, mythic, and, at times, grotesque. Lau knows how to use her sentence structure to create a sense of unease.

[Melody · Rating 4 out of 5]

As confusing as this book was, I loved it!!

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous and strange. Worth reading more than once!