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The Rock Eaters: Stories
A story collection, in the vein of Carmen Maria Machado, Kelly Link, and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, spanning worlds and dimensions, using strange and speculative elements to tackle issues ranging from class differences to immigration to first-generation experiences to xenophobia
What does it mean to be other? What does it mean to love in a world determined to keep us apart?
These questions murmur in the heart of each of Brenda Peynado’s strange and singular stories. Threaded with magic, transcending time and place, these stories explore what it means to cross borders and break down walls, personally and politically. In one story, suburban families perform oblations to cattlelike angels who live on their roofs, believing that their “thoughts and prayers” will protect them from the world’s violence. In another, inhabitants of an unnamed dictatorship slowly lose their own agency as pieces of their bodies go missing and, with them, the essential rights that those appendages serve. “The Great Escape” tells of an old woman who hides away in her apartment, reliving the past among beautiful objects she’s hoarded, refusing all visitors, until she disappears completely. In the title story, children begin to levitate, flying away from their parents and their home country, leading them to eat rocks in order to stay grounded.
With elements of science fiction and fantasy, fabulism and magical realism, Brenda Peynado uses her stories to reflect our flawed world, and the incredible, terrifying, and marvelous nature of humanity.
What does it mean to be other? What does it mean to love in a world determined to keep us apart?
These questions murmur in the heart of each of Brenda Peynado’s strange and singular stories. Threaded with magic, transcending time and place, these stories explore what it means to cross borders and break down walls, personally and politically. In one story, suburban families perform oblations to cattlelike angels who live on their roofs, believing that their “thoughts and prayers” will protect them from the world’s violence. In another, inhabitants of an unnamed dictatorship slowly lose their own agency as pieces of their bodies go missing and, with them, the essential rights that those appendages serve. “The Great Escape” tells of an old woman who hides away in her apartment, reliving the past among beautiful objects she’s hoarded, refusing all visitors, until she disappears completely. In the title story, children begin to levitate, flying away from their parents and their home country, leading them to eat rocks in order to stay grounded.
With elements of science fiction and fantasy, fabulism and magical realism, Brenda Peynado uses her stories to reflect our flawed world, and the incredible, terrifying, and marvelous nature of humanity.
276 pages, Paperback
First published May 11, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 183 reviews
May 30, 2022
The Rock Eaters: Stories will probably appeal to fans of macabre tales, such as the ones authored by Samanta Schweblin, Mariana Enríquez, and possibly even Yōko Ogawa. This collection of speculative short stories is a highly metaphorical one. Brenda Peynado uses magical realism, aliens, dystopian and fantastic scenarios, to discuss immigration, xenophobia, and class disparity. While I appreciated the issues Peynado tackles within her narratives these stories seemed often allegorical to the point of distraction. Much of the imagery was repetitive and the grotesque elements embedded within these narratives came across as unnecessarily garish and sensationalistic.
Peynado's fabulist tales are certainly more successful than those stories that venture into the sci-fi/dystopian realm; they either read like knock-off Black Mirror episodes or as incredibly derivative of other works. There is one story, in particular, that seemed to rip off Memory Police, and another one—starring aliens being persecuted and oppressed—seemed a bit too reminiscent of films such as District 9.
While the author certainly plays around with different genres the tone and style of these stories weren't all that varied. They are incredibly depressing and negative. The characters blur together, seeming to share the same kind of generic personality. The author often uses a choral perspective, 'we/us', and this struck me as the classic stylistic device used in creative writing classes ('experiment' with 'perspective' and all that). It just didn't work for me. I also found that these stories didn't have much to say about anything other than underlining how crap everything is. There seems to be not one ray of hope within these tales. The lack of lgbtq+ characters also seemed a bit annoying (one story has a same-sex relationship). I also did not care for the way in which these tales handle mental health and diseases (that one where people fall asleep for years, or the one with the wife in a come).
I can think of many other books that discuss similar topics with much more depth (The Undocumented Americans, works by Patricia Engel and Edwidge Danticat). In this collection, the author seems to sacrifice character and story development to style. This may indeed work for other readers but it did zilch for me.
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March 10, 2021
The Rock Eaters is the debut collection of Dominican American author Brenda Peynado, perfect for lovers of Carmen Maria Machado and Kelly Link. In these compelling, surreal stories, Peynado often writes in collective voice, capturing the disconcerted voice of young teens as a whole, or telling stories through a disembodied 'we.' She writes of coming of age, of dystopia and angels. The stories veer between realism, magical realism, and out-and-out fantasy or science fiction, but Peynado's voice is consistent through them all, eerie and intangible.
The collection begins strong with "Thoughts and Prayers"—a young girl and her best friend Rima are shaken by a school shooting, but the adults around them are focused only on caution, only on praying to the bird-like angels that perch on their rooftops. From there, Peynado draws you in more and more, with sorrows that grow into stones, children haunted by drowning or flight, aliens and missing body parts and a coat that is a man and a bacteria-plagued world where a woman strives to be touched.
And then the final stories arrive to steal your heart completely. In the San Junipero–esque "The Dreamers," three teens struggle to feel steady in an insomniac dystopia where when you fall asleep, whether by accident or by choice, you are likely to be asleep for a third of your life. Most people stay awake through their youth and fall asleep until death, but the protagonist's boyfriend leaves her staggering when he chooses to fall asleep months before prom. "We Work in Miraculous Cages" is a brutal and painfully real story about the never-ending productivity, the grasping struggle of the younger generations to work enough to survive, the ever-delayed promise of a content life racing out in front of them. And in "The Radioactives," Chávez pays a group good money if they agree to use his X-ray machine to spot drugs being smuggled—but fails to inform them of the consequences.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This collection should be on your radar. The Rock Eaters: Stories comes out May 11 from Penguin Books.
The collection begins strong with "Thoughts and Prayers"—a young girl and her best friend Rima are shaken by a school shooting, but the adults around them are focused only on caution, only on praying to the bird-like angels that perch on their rooftops. From there, Peynado draws you in more and more, with sorrows that grow into stones, children haunted by drowning or flight, aliens and missing body parts and a coat that is a man and a bacteria-plagued world where a woman strives to be touched.
And then the final stories arrive to steal your heart completely. In the San Junipero–esque "The Dreamers," three teens struggle to feel steady in an insomniac dystopia where when you fall asleep, whether by accident or by choice, you are likely to be asleep for a third of your life. Most people stay awake through their youth and fall asleep until death, but the protagonist's boyfriend leaves her staggering when he chooses to fall asleep months before prom. "We Work in Miraculous Cages" is a brutal and painfully real story about the never-ending productivity, the grasping struggle of the younger generations to work enough to survive, the ever-delayed promise of a content life racing out in front of them. And in "The Radioactives," Chávez pays a group good money if they agree to use his X-ray machine to spot drugs being smuggled—but fails to inform them of the consequences.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This collection should be on your radar. The Rock Eaters: Stories comes out May 11 from Penguin Books.
February 27, 2023
A colorful, ambitious collection of stories that use extraordinary characters and events to examine their real life counterparts. Through ghosts, virtual reality, and rooftop angels, The Rock Eaters call out contemporary issues such as class discrimination, racism, intimacy in an age of digital perfection, and the perpetual struggle of being othered. Vibrant, exciting, and layered with sorrow and defiance, this collection is a sweeping statement on the ever turbulent nature of humans in a terrifyingly volatile age.
May 17, 2021
'The Rock Eaters' by Dominican American author Brenda Peynado is exactly the shockingly beautiful and soul-twisting debut short story collection that you need to add to your life immediately. Each tale pierced deeper into my heart and made me explore aspects of my consciousness that are easier to keep buried and overlook in our daily hustle and bustle. Through layers of fantasy, rage, horror, futuristic and suburban settings, and intimate character studies, the author fleshes out her feelings on immigration, colonialism, otherness, adolescence, cultural violence, toxic masculinity, religion, and the cost of grief and love.
The book opens with "Thoughts and Prayers", a story that immediately places readers into a familiar and yet foreign setting. In a Florida town, residents pray to the strange, harpy-like angels that perch on their roofs to keep them safe each day...literally offering them "thoughts and prayers". When the town is devastated by a school shooting, Peynado turns the volume all the way up to polarize and mobilize her characters.
Her characters are elemental and in stories like "The Drownings", "The Stones of Sorrow Lake", and "The Rock Eaters", the characters' relationship to land and water becomes intrinsically linked to their being. The children in "The Drownings" spend their time growing up in the water, exploring each others bodies, ingesting chlorine pool water through kisses and to see how long they can hold their breath and beat against the natural and powerful hold of a death by drowning. In a long corrupted rust-belt town the characters in "The Stones of Sorrow Lake" manifest craggy, rock-like tumors upon experiencing their first sorrow. These tumors grow and will eventually need to fall into the waters of Sorrow Lake where they will serve as reminders of past trauma for the inhabitants. In a place where personal tragedy is so visible it is curious to see how the characters care for each other. "The Rock Eaters" is a completely fresh portrayal of diaspora where island inhabitants begin to leave their homeland and travel through the air to places beyond the horizon, eating the earth and soil wherever they set down in a literal act of assimilation and becoming.
"Yaiza" broke my heart wide open and explores how even an act of kindness can be manipulated and injure "outsiders" within the codified walls of a community. In "Catarina", a woman begins a relationship with a man whose wife is in a coma and tells the reader about observing his marriage from the outside. It's a brutal look at relationships and explores the boundless capabilities of what it means to love. "The Man I Could Be" rattles the reader with its brutality and exploration of masculinity as a young boy puts on the mantle of the warrior he believes he could be when his father gifts him his Korean war jacket. And in "The Whitest Girl" Peynado examines the intricate hierarchies of girl-society and the unwritten laws of who is chosen to be included and protected within those coveted circles.
Peynado is a stunning writer and her work has appeared in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy anthology and won an O. Henry Award, and fans of Carmen Maria Machado, will love 'The Rock Eaters'.
Many thanks to Edelweiss, the publisher, and the author for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.
The book opens with "Thoughts and Prayers", a story that immediately places readers into a familiar and yet foreign setting. In a Florida town, residents pray to the strange, harpy-like angels that perch on their roofs to keep them safe each day...literally offering them "thoughts and prayers". When the town is devastated by a school shooting, Peynado turns the volume all the way up to polarize and mobilize her characters.
Her characters are elemental and in stories like "The Drownings", "The Stones of Sorrow Lake", and "The Rock Eaters", the characters' relationship to land and water becomes intrinsically linked to their being. The children in "The Drownings" spend their time growing up in the water, exploring each others bodies, ingesting chlorine pool water through kisses and to see how long they can hold their breath and beat against the natural and powerful hold of a death by drowning. In a long corrupted rust-belt town the characters in "The Stones of Sorrow Lake" manifest craggy, rock-like tumors upon experiencing their first sorrow. These tumors grow and will eventually need to fall into the waters of Sorrow Lake where they will serve as reminders of past trauma for the inhabitants. In a place where personal tragedy is so visible it is curious to see how the characters care for each other. "The Rock Eaters" is a completely fresh portrayal of diaspora where island inhabitants begin to leave their homeland and travel through the air to places beyond the horizon, eating the earth and soil wherever they set down in a literal act of assimilation and becoming.
"Yaiza" broke my heart wide open and explores how even an act of kindness can be manipulated and injure "outsiders" within the codified walls of a community. In "Catarina", a woman begins a relationship with a man whose wife is in a coma and tells the reader about observing his marriage from the outside. It's a brutal look at relationships and explores the boundless capabilities of what it means to love. "The Man I Could Be" rattles the reader with its brutality and exploration of masculinity as a young boy puts on the mantle of the warrior he believes he could be when his father gifts him his Korean war jacket. And in "The Whitest Girl" Peynado examines the intricate hierarchies of girl-society and the unwritten laws of who is chosen to be included and protected within those coveted circles.
Peynado is a stunning writer and her work has appeared in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy anthology and won an O. Henry Award, and fans of Carmen Maria Machado, will love 'The Rock Eaters'.
Many thanks to Edelweiss, the publisher, and the author for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.
January 19, 2021
This is a smart book, and beautifully written. But like, ouch. Each short story was a fresh flavor of soul-crushing, without much reprieve in the way of humor or dialogue. One story in particular (which describes a vet tech putting down pets whose families can't afford to save them) was so painful that I put off reading it for a week. It's a powerful and imaginative condemnation of the way our world sets people (particularly marginalized women) up for failure and hurt. And I know it's a privilege to be able to put stories like this down and walk away, when so many people are living these realities (metaphorically, anyway). But in the year of our lord 2021, it was sad to the point of being unreadable.
May 15, 2021
These stories will pull the earth from beneath your feet and leave you tumbling, breathless in shock and wonder, through the sky.
Flying families, useless guardian angels, trauma that erupts in stony growths, alien kite flyers, and vicious, wounded girlhood. A suburban landscape dreamy and lush and strange as another planet.
Peynado is a spellbinder, her sentences weaving together like garlands of locks. Pick up this collection and fall under its mournful enchantment.
Flying families, useless guardian angels, trauma that erupts in stony growths, alien kite flyers, and vicious, wounded girlhood. A suburban landscape dreamy and lush and strange as another planet.
Peynado is a spellbinder, her sentences weaving together like garlands of locks. Pick up this collection and fall under its mournful enchantment.
June 14, 2021
This is a writer we're going to be hearing about for a long, long time. She tackles difficult topics head-on with courage and insight, all within a surreal world that allows her metaphors to soar to incredible heights. I am absolutely in love with her writing and the brilliant way her mind and heart work. I feel incredibly lucky that I got to have this book in my life.
June 7, 2021
THE ROCK EATERS by debut Brenda Peynado is a luminous collection of 16 award-winning short stories filled with speculative elements that are rich with allegory.
“Thoughts and Prayers” begins the morning of another school shooting in a Florida suburb. Each house has a resident guardian angel, or really just a creature with a humanoid face, black bovine eyes, and bird body that squats on the roof beside the chimney. They chew grass and produce guano while thoughts and prayers are offered up to them every morning at dawn. A young girl, who lost her sister in the latest tragedy, remarks: “Nobody’s doing anything.”
“The Kite Maker,” explores themes of social justice through the lens of science fiction. An alien race, nicknamed Dragonflies for their wings, have crash landed on our planet. They are massacred and then assimilated into work camps for cheap labor. An antique toymaker remembers killing Dragonflies after their arks fell from the sky and cracked open like eggs. Memories of violence haunt her as the Dragonflies frequent her shop for her handmade kites. They fly them in the park across the street and yip with sheer joy. Dragonflies can’t fly in Earth’s heavy atmosphere, they can only send up their kites and remember the feeling of weightlessness and belonging on their home planet. When a band of skinheads vandalize shops that cater to aliens, the kite maker hides a Dragonfly in her workshop. She even recognizes one of the newly shaven skinheads: “Did it matter that before the Dragonflies arrived, she and I would have been hated instead—for our dark hair, her Chicana roots and my Dominican ones…”
“The Rock Eaters” features the dreamy, magical realism often found in Latin-American literature. First-generation Americans take to the sky and fly back to the island country of their birth like a large flock of migratory birds. They carry their young children over the ocean to meet their grandparents and see the old country. As the children age, their bodies are able to levitate and fly like their parents, but they don’t want to abandon the island and its people—their people, their heritage. Instead of preparing to return to the distant land of opportunity, they tether their ankles to the ground and eat bellyfuls of red rocks to weigh down their maturing bodies.
These are just a sampling of the stories from a remarkable new talent.
“Thoughts and Prayers” begins the morning of another school shooting in a Florida suburb. Each house has a resident guardian angel, or really just a creature with a humanoid face, black bovine eyes, and bird body that squats on the roof beside the chimney. They chew grass and produce guano while thoughts and prayers are offered up to them every morning at dawn. A young girl, who lost her sister in the latest tragedy, remarks: “Nobody’s doing anything.”
“The Kite Maker,” explores themes of social justice through the lens of science fiction. An alien race, nicknamed Dragonflies for their wings, have crash landed on our planet. They are massacred and then assimilated into work camps for cheap labor. An antique toymaker remembers killing Dragonflies after their arks fell from the sky and cracked open like eggs. Memories of violence haunt her as the Dragonflies frequent her shop for her handmade kites. They fly them in the park across the street and yip with sheer joy. Dragonflies can’t fly in Earth’s heavy atmosphere, they can only send up their kites and remember the feeling of weightlessness and belonging on their home planet. When a band of skinheads vandalize shops that cater to aliens, the kite maker hides a Dragonfly in her workshop. She even recognizes one of the newly shaven skinheads: “Did it matter that before the Dragonflies arrived, she and I would have been hated instead—for our dark hair, her Chicana roots and my Dominican ones…”
“The Rock Eaters” features the dreamy, magical realism often found in Latin-American literature. First-generation Americans take to the sky and fly back to the island country of their birth like a large flock of migratory birds. They carry their young children over the ocean to meet their grandparents and see the old country. As the children age, their bodies are able to levitate and fly like their parents, but they don’t want to abandon the island and its people—their people, their heritage. Instead of preparing to return to the distant land of opportunity, they tether their ankles to the ground and eat bellyfuls of red rocks to weigh down their maturing bodies.
These are just a sampling of the stories from a remarkable new talent.
May 12, 2021
This strange, beautiful, utterly heartbreaking collection is full of stories that I’ll never forget. I felt the sadness in my body as I read this book, in the best possible way.
October 4, 2021
When I read the first paragraph of the blurb, I was all ready to jump in. (Carmen Machado? Kelly Link? Adjeh-Brenyah? Yessss.) Oddly enough, that first paragraph is not on the back cover of the paperback.
I appreciate the ideas behind the stories. But I agree with one of the other reviewers that the stories are too long for what they're trying to say. Maybe if the writing was sharper and tighter, I would enjoy these stories more. But this has been a disappointment.
I appreciate the ideas behind the stories. But I agree with one of the other reviewers that the stories are too long for what they're trying to say. Maybe if the writing was sharper and tighter, I would enjoy these stories more. But this has been a disappointment.
October 25, 2021
Despite Brenda Peynado's blending of social allegory, magic realism, science fiction, Latin culture, and YA drama, The Rock Eaters is an unimpressive collection of stories. She's a capable writer but I found her stories too long, and there were too many of them. Four or five stories could have been cut out of this book and it wouldn't have made much difference.
I think the problem is that Peynado is trying to accomplish too much at once, and by doing so the book lacks an overarching thesis. If she hadn't cast her net so wide she may have been able to gain better focus with the collection. Though she includes a mass shooting, aliens, a quinceanera, and sleepless nuns, The Rock Eaters is just dull, though "Thoughts and Prayers," "The Dreamers," and "We Work in Miraculous Cages" are the best stories in the book.
I think the problem is that Peynado is trying to accomplish too much at once, and by doing so the book lacks an overarching thesis. If she hadn't cast her net so wide she may have been able to gain better focus with the collection. Though she includes a mass shooting, aliens, a quinceanera, and sleepless nuns, The Rock Eaters is just dull, though "Thoughts and Prayers," "The Dreamers," and "We Work in Miraculous Cages" are the best stories in the book.
June 26, 2021
This is my first book of short stories in a very long time and it was phenomenal! The blend of magical realism, sci-fi, family dynamics, coming of age, romance, and introspection was intricate and thought-provoking. The stories were just the right length and the characters were interesting and relatable. I highly recommend this book!
May 30, 2021
A gorgeously written collection. These stories, ranging from science fiction, to fabulism, to literary realism, were united by stunning prose, and a fierce sense of compassion and justice. They ask important questions about what is right, and the human ability to change, or not. What do we do when we can't undo the wrongs we have done?
May 17, 2021
Thank you to the publisher for the gifted copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
This collection of short stories was so different than anything I’ve ever read before. The book contains 16 short stories that are filled with magical realism, sci-fi and fantasy elements.
The stories took me a little bit to get used to in terms of the genre and formatting but once I did, I really enjoyed the work. The stories were an extremely creative approach to modern culture and a reflection of issues seen in today’s age. After the first short story- I knew I was in for an emotional ride. My favorite from the book was “The Kite Maker.” It really brought forth so many emotions while utilizing a sci fi element which was so unique!
This collection of short stories was so different than anything I’ve ever read before. The book contains 16 short stories that are filled with magical realism, sci-fi and fantasy elements.
The stories took me a little bit to get used to in terms of the genre and formatting but once I did, I really enjoyed the work. The stories were an extremely creative approach to modern culture and a reflection of issues seen in today’s age. After the first short story- I knew I was in for an emotional ride. My favorite from the book was “The Kite Maker.” It really brought forth so many emotions while utilizing a sci fi element which was so unique!
May 15, 2021
A glorious, masterful short story collection. Each story sings entirely on its own (and many left me crying) and they work gorgeously as a whole, moving the reader through vivid emotional landscapes and asking question after relentless question about how and why humans are what we are.
April 20, 2021
Review by Julia Romero, Proofreader and Book Reviewer at October Hill Magazine
Brenda Peynado has brought together 16 brilliantly strange works of fiction, set across time and its infinite dimensions, to create a finished product that is distinctly original and inventive. Peynado rejects rudimentary narrative structure and instead chooses to analyze humanity through elaborate and all-encompassing metaphors. This method of storytelling makes for a collection that defies the boundaries of genre and tackles issues ranging from classism to immigration to generational trauma to what it means to act like a hero.
While these issues are present in The Rock Eaters, Peynado never tackles them head on. Instead, she presents a world to the reader—a world not unlike our own, yet rich with exaggeration, fabulism, and strong-willed characters—and tells their stories...[read the rest of the review in October Hill Magazine's Spring 2021 Issue]
Brenda Peynado has brought together 16 brilliantly strange works of fiction, set across time and its infinite dimensions, to create a finished product that is distinctly original and inventive. Peynado rejects rudimentary narrative structure and instead chooses to analyze humanity through elaborate and all-encompassing metaphors. This method of storytelling makes for a collection that defies the boundaries of genre and tackles issues ranging from classism to immigration to generational trauma to what it means to act like a hero.
While these issues are present in The Rock Eaters, Peynado never tackles them head on. Instead, she presents a world to the reader—a world not unlike our own, yet rich with exaggeration, fabulism, and strong-willed characters—and tells their stories...[read the rest of the review in October Hill Magazine's Spring 2021 Issue]
June 22, 2024
things brenda peynado is interested in: the strange, the unsettling, small magics, pariahs, stories narrated by a first-person-plural "we," latine identity, class divides, allegorical symbolism, bodies and what's done to them, stories that leave you a little unsettled. things i am interested in: brenda peynado's mind. this collection is sixteen stories. some of them felt a little crooked (too short, or too long, or too distant), but all of them are strange and beautiful. my favorites:
1. Thoughts and Prayers
in which a school shooting strikes an american suburb where families pray for safety to the angels on their roofs, angels that mostly chew cud and don't blink. this is the perfect start to this collection, because it's thematically emblematic of so much of the stories to follow and because it's throat-grabbing. i'm not sure how i feel about the ending, but i think this is the one that's going to stick with me the most.
2. The Drownings
peynado likes stories where almost everything is the same except for one little unusual twist in the world. in this one, it's that a rash of drownings take lives from every generation, kind of like clockwork, and the current teenagers are fascinated by the immortality their swimming pools seem to promise. i was going to say that i don't know why it got me so bad, but i guess stories about adolescence and death as freedom will do that to me. also the prose is BREATHTAKING
3. We Work In Miraculous Cages
no scifi-fantasy here; just cold capitalist dystopia. i don't know if it's the character voice that grabbed me or just the way this story makes stark the sheer horror of the way work grinds us down, but ohhhhh man. oh my god. peynado's prose makes me crazy bonkers
[june edit: this ended up the story i consistently think about the most from this collection. aough]
4. The Kite Maker
this one took a little while to grow on me--it's one of the longer stories in the collection--but by the end i was transfixed and also ruined. it follows the aftermath of an alien arrival, one that humans reacted to with violence; it's a story asking how we can deal with the aftermath of a terrible, terrible crime. it makes me want to pull my hair out
these are my personal favorites, but the entire collection is worth a read (the story chosen for last place is a REALLY really good finale, for example). i have some gripes (the number of stories narrated by a plural "we" was a lot, and started to blend together; some of the stories felt more exercising than heartfelt), but i'm consistently impressed by the way peynado offers all these little glimpses into strange and familiar worlds. really excited to read more of her writing, because how did i miss it for this long.
1. Thoughts and Prayers
Our teachers mentioned the shootings, but then moved on to the day's lessons. If they had to stop for every shooting, they said, the whole world would stop. Shouldn't the whole world have stopped? But I didn't know how to stop it.
in which a school shooting strikes an american suburb where families pray for safety to the angels on their roofs, angels that mostly chew cud and don't blink. this is the perfect start to this collection, because it's thematically emblematic of so much of the stories to follow and because it's throat-grabbing. i'm not sure how i feel about the ending, but i think this is the one that's going to stick with me the most.
2. The Drownings
If only we could live in every moment forever. If only the answers to our lives could be captured in a bottle we could drink from again instead of looking back across unreachable chasms, our own out-of-body experiences.
peynado likes stories where almost everything is the same except for one little unusual twist in the world. in this one, it's that a rash of drownings take lives from every generation, kind of like clockwork, and the current teenagers are fascinated by the immortality their swimming pools seem to promise. i was going to say that i don't know why it got me so bad, but i guess stories about adolescence and death as freedom will do that to me. also the prose is BREATHTAKING
3. We Work In Miraculous Cages
I thought about how they had spent not just their lives, but our lives, too, gobbled up or snorted up or injected into their faces all that good fortune of the eighties and the dot-com boom, them laying their heads back into the shampoo bowl and me wasting all my understanding about the world--fluid dynamics, the great monologues of literature, the construction of engines, the physics of flight--on rubbing their skin over their bones.
no scifi-fantasy here; just cold capitalist dystopia. i don't know if it's the character voice that grabbed me or just the way this story makes stark the sheer horror of the way work grinds us down, but ohhhhh man. oh my god. peynado's prose makes me crazy bonkers
[june edit: this ended up the story i consistently think about the most from this collection. aough]
4. The Kite Maker
For them, it was just a story. They never got to the point of horror, the point when we were sorry, when the tide turned, after we wanted them to surrender in the human way, arms up, after we wanted them to fight back to absolve us, after we realized they could not be pushed to fight back, when we began to carry them into the hospitals and the morgue, the doctors trying as best as they could to understand our differences, how to get under their armor, how to splint antennae together, where the vital organs were.
this one took a little while to grow on me--it's one of the longer stories in the collection--but by the end i was transfixed and also ruined. it follows the aftermath of an alien arrival, one that humans reacted to with violence; it's a story asking how we can deal with the aftermath of a terrible, terrible crime. it makes me want to pull my hair out
these are my personal favorites, but the entire collection is worth a read (the story chosen for last place is a REALLY really good finale, for example). i have some gripes (the number of stories narrated by a plural "we" was a lot, and started to blend together; some of the stories felt more exercising than heartfelt), but i'm consistently impressed by the way peynado offers all these little glimpses into strange and familiar worlds. really excited to read more of her writing, because how did i miss it for this long.
October 25, 2021
The first story, “Thoughts and Prayers,” was well-written and clever. I thought the rest of the stories would follow suit, but sadly they didn’t. Most of the stories were pretty gruesome, for lack of a better word. They were really sad and depressing, which is usually my jam, but for some reason, they didn’t work for me. The writing is quite good, so don’t listen to me, check them out for yourself and you may like them more than I did.
January 2, 2022
These stories are extraordinary.
Peynado gives shape, texture, and definition to our most indescribable emotions, not to capture them, but rather to give them breath and life in a kind of transcendent anthropomorphism.
Of all the stories, I was most deeply affected by The Kite Maker. That story hollowed me out, making space for the heaviest of emotions to rush in. The author made me feel so much that it almost made me angry. I can't remember a short story or novella affecting me that strongly before.
I just hope I don't knock over somebody's grandma trying to get to whatever this author writes next.
Peynado gives shape, texture, and definition to our most indescribable emotions, not to capture them, but rather to give them breath and life in a kind of transcendent anthropomorphism.
Of all the stories, I was most deeply affected by The Kite Maker. That story hollowed me out, making space for the heaviest of emotions to rush in. The author made me feel so much that it almost made me angry. I can't remember a short story or novella affecting me that strongly before.
I just hope I don't knock over somebody's grandma trying to get to whatever this author writes next.
July 3, 2021
3.5 stars a great collection of stories from a new voice.
Recommended.
Recommended.
October 16, 2022
There’s a lot to process here - I may change the rating later
May 11, 2025
actually 4.5 a couple of these stories are some of the best short stories i have ever read
June 3, 2025
I had such high hopes for this one, but it really just fell flat for me. I liked some of the stories more than others - the last half was a real struggle, though.
May 31, 2021
Beautiful, strange stories. It's hard to read this book in a sitting, because of how unrelentingly bleak it is, but they're all of them worth a read. I liked The Touches best, as it ends ambiguously, the most hopeful of all of them.
May 6, 2021
One of the great advantages of a short story collection is that the reader doesn't have to completely commit but can instead pick and choose and even stop reading one without losing the train of the narrative. I love short stories - I like to keep them to read one by one. This collection of 16 confounded me in ways I didn't expect. It's not straightforward at all and there's much imagery. Readers should know that there aren't happy endings and that there's at least one that animal lovers will want to avoid. Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC. This one will make you stretch. For fans of literary fiction.
December 27, 2021
I am stunned at how strangely glorious this book is and surprised at how much I loved it. “The Rock Eaters: Stories” by Brenda Peynado is another absolute stunning debut short story collection I’ve read this year. Short story collections are tricky because it’s either hit or a miss. Fortunately, handful of ones I’ve read this year all have exceeded my expectations, and this is no exception. This book was everything I normally don’t go for, which was why I had to read it; and Brenda Peynado is unlike any other writer I've ever read before. Peynado work is being compared to Carmen Maria Machado, Kelly Link, and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. I also saw bit of Helen Oyeyemi & Silvia Moreno-Garcia as well.
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This enthralling, strange, and thought-provoking collection of genre-bending short stories consists of wide range of genres — magical realism, fabulism, speculative fiction, and social commentary, covering wide range of topics — immigration, race, class, climate change, millennial hustle, friendship, influencers, gun culture, and xenophobia. Each story stand out on its own, but they work gorgeously as a whole & together. This book is really going to make you think about human nature and how & why humans are what we are.
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This enthralling, strange, and thought-provoking collection of genre-bending short stories consists of wide range of genres — magical realism, fabulism, speculative fiction, and social commentary, covering wide range of topics — immigration, race, class, climate change, millennial hustle, friendship, influencers, gun culture, and xenophobia. Each story stand out on its own, but they work gorgeously as a whole & together. This book is really going to make you think about human nature and how & why humans are what we are.
August 12, 2021
what a depressing and upsetting slog of a book. is fiction supposed to make you feel this terrible? is anything? what was the point of this? I can't remember the last time I has such a horrible experience reading fiction.
February 4, 2021
opens up your wounds and lets them breathe
July 26, 2021
Easily my favourite collection of short stories… ever. I can not recommend this enough!!!
June 7, 2021
closer to 3,5
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