Review: Not Bad
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 20, 2014
An important aspect that I was glad was included in this short story was a brief history of its origins. It's a 15 year old short story that was turned into a novel, and this is the first part of that book. This excerpt does work as a short story, but I think it would most likely be better included in the full context of the novel.Some of the plot is odd to me. Scarcity is a 17 year old girl who kind of randomly stumbles into this older woman's life. (Though it isn't really all that random. The girl plots their encounter, observes the woman, Teresa, from afar for a while before making her move.) Teresa has no clue who this girl is, yet after her dog attacks Scarcity, Teresa doesn't hesitate much when Scarcity invites herself into Teresa's home. Scarcity is very forward, and while that's an aspect of her character, Teresa seems unrealistically too complacent with it. Forward strangers are generally something people are more iffy about. But not all of the plot was unrealistic. When Scarcity comes onto Teresa romantically, Teresa expresses hesitance more than once. This is a very realistic reaction seeing as they're both scarred by life and given the age difference between them.Genet's writing is also pretty good. There's a lot of description of the nature around Teresa's house, which I thought was appropriate since Teresa is an artist and appreciates the beauty in things. There are some nice descriptive points (plums and their color) that are made repeatedly throughout the short story and tie in with the plot very well.Overall, I like it. It's a different lesbian romance story. While I probably wouldn't go on to purchase the novel, if you end up liking the characters enough, you might want to.