Haven Squire’s Reviews > Furies: Stories of the Wicked, Wild and Untamed > Status Update

I guess that is what happens with short stories - there are so many different themes they cannot all be the right taste. I of course loved the focus on women in each one though as I am really interested in discussions around gender. I think the premise of each story reinventing a term used to negatively describe women was really interesting as well.

Tygress reminded me slightly of Mrs Fox which I read last year - like I didn't expect it to be about a person who literally turned into a tiger. I thought this was done better though as the symbolism and reason for her being a tiger specifically based on racial stereotypes was really interesting; and finally Dragon.

Spitfire was very well written and I liked the idea of the woman wanting to know more about her mother (I also liked the way real facts were integrated as they were interesting); Fury was the final one I read as I didn't do them in order and although not interesting to begin with the women throwing stones at the Germans was so iconic and I can't believe that actually happened!

I liked Banshee and the fact that the girl killed her dad was literally insane; She-devil was a comic strip which I enjoyed for a change although the story was slightly confusing and I am not entirely sure what was actually happening; I liked the theme of Muckracker (a woman dating widowed men) but she kept talking about so many different men it got confusing.

Actually maybe Harridan was my favourite, I really loved the story of this one (although it being set in Covid did throw me a bit), it was written very realistically and the feud between the neighbours was interesting; Warrior is definitely not the sort of thing I would usually read about (tribes fighting each other) but it was still quite interesting.

Wench was quite strangely written but that actually made it pretty interesting and unexpected; strangely Hussy was potentially my favourite - I really liked the main character and despite it literally being about porn stars it felt quite naturally and realistically written and also pretty interesting; Vituperator I literally can hardly remember, that was a very nothing one for me.

Here's my thoughts on them all: Siren was slightly strange and had a very odd perspective, it was quirky but just not particularly my cup of tea; Virago was really quite interesting although a little confusing as to who the patient really was with a slightly unsatisfactory ending; I quite liked Churail and the fear of the father; Termagant was the first one first one I read and I liked the main character in this one.

I had to read some of the short stories in this for my creative writing module. As I had already read about half I decided to just finish the entire thing. Honestly, a lot of them were very mid and not particularly exciting. As they were short stories this didn't pose too much of a problem as I could get through them quickly enough anyway - I also liked being able to read like one a day.