The connection between these short stories is that they all take place on Hungry Hearts Row, a neighborhood of restaurants featuring very different cuisines and very different stories. There’s some interplay between characters but only enough to unify the scene. Only a couple of the stories take the prompt literally and use food to bring characters together romantically; others were about relating to estranged family through food, or using food as a way to make peace with one’s past. I particularly liked the ones that were more out of left field, like the one where the Chinese restaurant was actually an integral part of a gang war, or the one where the Muslim superhero literally fell out of the sky in front of a food cart. Some duds, but a strong collection overall; I appreciated the wide variety of ethnicities and cultures represented in both the foods and the stories.
Tag: author-rebecca roanhorse
Fevered Star, by Rebecca Roanhorse
It’s been long enough since I read the prequel (Black Sun) that I wasn’t sure I’d remember anything that led up to the climactic cliffhanger, but this one was really good at summing up the events of the first book without being boring. Even though this one was mostly about politicking, as opposed to the action that drove the prequel, it still felt dramatic and tense. Roanhorse takes a very show-don’t-tell approach to world establishment, letting the characters’ interactions with one another establish the salient features of each clan or gang or other organization, which is great but also confusing; there were many players with different affiliations, and I could have used a crib sheet. If I had to nitpick, it would be to say that this felt a bit characters-in-service-to-the-plot instead of the other way around; some previously forceful characters were weirdly passive as events shoved them about. Still, great reading; I’ll just have to remember to reread the prequels before the third one comes out.
Trail of Lightning, by Rebecca Roanhorse
This is a kind of book I read a lot of back in the 90s: gritty urban fantasy with angsty warrior chicks. Except this urban fantasy takes place on a postapocalyptic Navajo nation, where gods and spirits roam freely; the angsty warrior chick on the front cover is often called in to defend the humans that find themselves caught in the middle of supernatural issues. Loved the action and the interesting take on indigenous mythology; did not love how warrior chick’s issues revolved completely around the men in her life.