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Broken Things
"Broken Things" encompasses a world of fractured realities and urban magic. Here are voices lost inside themselves, where the world is lopsided and nothing may be trusted. A kitchen knife crawls after a little girl to keep her safe and an old lady hears her mother calling from a cupboard.
144 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 29, 2016
I picked this up as part of the #MentalHealthAwarenessReadathon and I have to say reading this collection with that in mind made this seem so surreal and both creepy but enchanting. This is a collection of incredibly short stories, most only a few pages long, which all focus on the idea of broken people, things, ideas, places etc. I have to say that this collection, although very short, took me a little while to really get into becuase although I really enjoyed the opening few stories the middle ones felt a little same-y at times. By the end of the book I think that the stories all picked back up again, and I really enjoyed some of these.
Some of the ones I most liked:
Darling - about a little dog found in a road - both chilling and heartwarming but left me with an underlying uncertainty.
God - I'm not a believer myself, but this was an interesting tale about how God may appear different to everyone - thought-provoking more than anything but some nice imagery too.
Vanity - This one was a little peculiar and very sad, but for me it worked - about a seagull struggling to fly and the many metaphors that this stands for.
Waiting - a predictable, yet lonely story - I liked the bitter landlady and the way she looked down on everyone else whilst not realising her own issues.
Shopping - cute beginning to a small child on a shopping trip but this hints at bad times ahead - one of the more memorable as it's fairly different.
Blade - possibly one of my favourites in the collection - hints at something tragic and horrible, but the way it's told (with calm detachment) makes it more haunting.
Demon - finding a creature which could be anything and raising and freeing it... this reminded me of Pandora's box a bit - definitely a good one.
Witness - a narrator who can feel everyone on her estate as they do what they do in the day and dead of night - made me certain I'd never want that ability.
Love - another one which reminded me of a different story - this one reminiscent of Pinocchio but with a woman sewing herself a child... definitely sad.
Sunset - kind of reminded me of a zombie apocalypse - the people and animals outside all wanting to destroy them and break in so they could have the light and escape never-ending time. Definitely a creepy one.
Catpurse - about stealing - certainly shows the darker side of the human psyche.
Mending - probably the one which most relates to the name of the collection and I really loved this one, certainly one of the most tragic and yet imaginative stories. All about a family of Mice and the human who created them...
On the whole I'd say probably half of the stories blended together in my mind, but the ones I have listed above all stood out to me and were more memorable than the rest. I liked the wording and the way Padrika writes is beautiful which is why this still gets a 4*s becuase although not every story was prefect or memorable, I think she's a fabulous author and I have to say I always enjoyed picking this back up. I definitely want to pick up some of her other work asap.
If you like fairy tales, lonely souls, broken things and hidden hopes then this may be one you'll want to try out. Also, if you read it from the pov of someone looking out for mental health then this collection becomes even more real and definitely evoked some strong feelings in my head.
Some of the ones I most liked:
Darling - about a little dog found in a road - both chilling and heartwarming but left me with an underlying uncertainty.
God - I'm not a believer myself, but this was an interesting tale about how God may appear different to everyone - thought-provoking more than anything but some nice imagery too.
Vanity - This one was a little peculiar and very sad, but for me it worked - about a seagull struggling to fly and the many metaphors that this stands for.
Waiting - a predictable, yet lonely story - I liked the bitter landlady and the way she looked down on everyone else whilst not realising her own issues.
Shopping - cute beginning to a small child on a shopping trip but this hints at bad times ahead - one of the more memorable as it's fairly different.
Blade - possibly one of my favourites in the collection - hints at something tragic and horrible, but the way it's told (with calm detachment) makes it more haunting.
Demon - finding a creature which could be anything and raising and freeing it... this reminded me of Pandora's box a bit - definitely a good one.
Witness - a narrator who can feel everyone on her estate as they do what they do in the day and dead of night - made me certain I'd never want that ability.
Love - another one which reminded me of a different story - this one reminiscent of Pinocchio but with a woman sewing herself a child... definitely sad.
Sunset - kind of reminded me of a zombie apocalypse - the people and animals outside all wanting to destroy them and break in so they could have the light and escape never-ending time. Definitely a creepy one.
Catpurse - about stealing - certainly shows the darker side of the human psyche.
Mending - probably the one which most relates to the name of the collection and I really loved this one, certainly one of the most tragic and yet imaginative stories. All about a family of Mice and the human who created them...
On the whole I'd say probably half of the stories blended together in my mind, but the ones I have listed above all stood out to me and were more memorable than the rest. I liked the wording and the way Padrika writes is beautiful which is why this still gets a 4*s becuase although not every story was prefect or memorable, I think she's a fabulous author and I have to say I always enjoyed picking this back up. I definitely want to pick up some of her other work asap.
If you like fairy tales, lonely souls, broken things and hidden hopes then this may be one you'll want to try out. Also, if you read it from the pov of someone looking out for mental health then this collection becomes even more real and definitely evoked some strong feelings in my head.
July 30, 2016
A really brilliant short story collection, with fantastic writing throughout and some outstanding stories. I especially like how she uses magic realism yet throws in to doubt whether these events are actually happening or are in the minds of her protagonists.
January 28, 2019
Edit 2018: I read this in march 2016 and in late 2018 I still think about this book all of the time.
——
This book is beautiful and heartbreaking and very well written. Although I didn't love all the stories, there were a lot of amazing ones in this book and there were no "bad" stories.
——
This book is beautiful and heartbreaking and very well written. Although I didn't love all the stories, there were a lot of amazing ones in this book and there were no "bad" stories.
April 1, 2020
I wanted this to work. I was intrigued by the synopsis which promised this to be "a book for those who have not outgrown fairytales; for those who like to feel just a little disturbed; for those who remember the ancient creeping of childhood darkness and the exquisite glory of snow."
Well, WOW! I'll take that home!
Sadly, the protagonists despite their atypical lives and fractured realities did not enthrall or move me. Even more disappointing was the fact that these characters were not distinct from one another. The overcast mood and dark atmosphere never changed from story to story. This homogeneous nature made it that much harder again to care.
What a shame because the intention seemed pure and wholly compelling.
Well, WOW! I'll take that home!
Sadly, the protagonists despite their atypical lives and fractured realities did not enthrall or move me. Even more disappointing was the fact that these characters were not distinct from one another. The overcast mood and dark atmosphere never changed from story to story. This homogeneous nature made it that much harder again to care.
What a shame because the intention seemed pure and wholly compelling.
April 26, 2018
Beautiful, sad, real, strange, surreal and still real-lots of short experiences with wonderful words and odd vividness that isn't odd. Read this in little bursts at bed time and had to just lie back and close my eyes and breathe softly after each session because it just felt right to do so. Sorry for such a -maybe?-uninformative review. Loved it.
October 9, 2020
Pardrika Tarrant’s writing is very unique and highly imaginative. In many ways, it reminds me of Aimee Bender’s work, only Tarrant’s work is much darker, and paints humanizing portraits of people suffering from mental illness. Highly recommended.
September 17, 2020
Una fantástica colección de relatos llenos de realismo mágico e inclinación por lo macabro. Mis favoritos: Underpass y Gas.
April 18, 2016
More macabre than early Ian McEwan. Like the blurbers, I'm reminded of Angela Carter. This isn't the world of fable or fairytale - when animals talk, you know they're not really talking. In fact no 2 minds seem to be inhabiting the same world - each story's dominated by an individual who's equally at home with Angels and Giros (the latter a UK reference), and who interface with others via essentials - food, housing, and sometimes love. Most stories are in the first person - main characters in the third person usually die. There's quite a lot of death, abandoned babies, thin films on objects, and wings - birds and angels.
The stories are 2-5 pages long, so the language doesn't dawdle. Striking similes abound - the following appear on pages 66-72 - "life-sized plastic cross ... glowing like a jellyfish", "the preacher comes right up to me, closer than a dentist", "There's a woodlouse by my hand stuck on its back like a tiny dead spaceship", "smiling like a rocking horse". These, combined with standard "good observation" ("the floor dirty in a line ... where the cleaner is lazy" (p.68), "one baby shoe that had been lost by someone and found by someone else ... spiked up in the rain on a black set of railings" (p.84) should satisfy the conventional story-reader.
I guess the most poetic piece is "High" (add a few line-breaks and you've got a poem). "Music", "Epiphany", "Nightmare" and "Blade" are weaker. Perhaps by then I was immunized to the style. "Witness" has a fine ending but I'd rather get there in 2 pages than 5. "Love" begins "Once upon a time" and more than any other piece wears the linguistic trappings of fable, though the setting's another Council House, and at the end we get confirmation that we're not in an alternative reality but another private delusion. Eventually, in "Sunset", a mother seems to share a viewpoint with a daughter and there's no reality check at the end.
Reading on, the quality rises again. "Nightswimming" begins with arson "The kitchen was ready for burning, after all those sorry years; I let the stove fulfil its secret ambition. The tea towels were bandage-dry" and ends with a long swim to a city under the ocean - "I didn't have a passport, so I showed them how to make a fox's silhouette with my hands". Again, no reality check at the end, no equivalent of waking the reader up to find it's all a dream. So she's not in the end a Realist, she's a Fabulist too.
The stories are 2-5 pages long, so the language doesn't dawdle. Striking similes abound - the following appear on pages 66-72 - "life-sized plastic cross ... glowing like a jellyfish", "the preacher comes right up to me, closer than a dentist", "There's a woodlouse by my hand stuck on its back like a tiny dead spaceship", "smiling like a rocking horse". These, combined with standard "good observation" ("the floor dirty in a line ... where the cleaner is lazy" (p.68), "one baby shoe that had been lost by someone and found by someone else ... spiked up in the rain on a black set of railings" (p.84) should satisfy the conventional story-reader.
I guess the most poetic piece is "High" (add a few line-breaks and you've got a poem). "Music", "Epiphany", "Nightmare" and "Blade" are weaker. Perhaps by then I was immunized to the style. "Witness" has a fine ending but I'd rather get there in 2 pages than 5. "Love" begins "Once upon a time" and more than any other piece wears the linguistic trappings of fable, though the setting's another Council House, and at the end we get confirmation that we're not in an alternative reality but another private delusion. Eventually, in "Sunset", a mother seems to share a viewpoint with a daughter and there's no reality check at the end.
Reading on, the quality rises again. "Nightswimming" begins with arson "The kitchen was ready for burning, after all those sorry years; I let the stove fulfil its secret ambition. The tea towels were bandage-dry" and ends with a long swim to a city under the ocean - "I didn't have a passport, so I showed them how to make a fox's silhouette with my hands". Again, no reality check at the end, no equivalent of waking the reader up to find it's all a dream. So she's not in the end a Realist, she's a Fabulist too.
July 25, 2012
Dark and surreal short stories - this book explores the sometimes uncomfortable territory of mental illness, blurring the boundaries of reality and fantasy. This is Tarrant's first book and feels - and some of the themes here are further developed (and with a much more assured and mature voice) in her novel The Knife Drawer.
September 26, 2008
Loved the Jesus as a baby one, and others held my interest but got too samey in the end.
September 18, 2010
an anthology
dark speculative fiction
leaves spineful shivers
dark speculative fiction
leaves spineful shivers
April 20, 2017
In a collection of over thirty short stories, to me it gets quite boring when they all capture the exact same feeling. Some of the stories were interesting, but only four really hit me (I truly loved these, though). These four favourites were "Anatomy", "Coffinwood", "Ascension" and "Skin". All four of these were in the beginning of the collection, so the reading experience become somewhat disappointing after a while.
Padrika Tarrant writes beautifully and I really want to try something else by her, but I do hope to discover that she can write diffrent things, encompass different emotions. These stories, despite being different in setting and plot, were just way too much of the same thing.
Padrika Tarrant writes beautifully and I really want to try something else by her, but I do hope to discover that she can write diffrent things, encompass different emotions. These stories, despite being different in setting and plot, were just way too much of the same thing.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews