| As noted here, I’m commenting daily on the WMG Holiday Spectacular—which is a great project that releases a story every day. These might be reviews. Or not. They might be interesting. Or … um … not. They will be fun, though. For me, at least. Here’s the next story. |
“Presents for Kitten”
Jessi Hammond
My primary comments here aren’t so much a review as remembrance. Sorry about that.
The story is quite good, of course. I don’t think there’s going to be a bad story in the mix. If you like a bit of a thriller/mystery feel to your short stories, you’ll like this one quite a bit. Bonus points for introducing me to turtling.
So, yeah, read it!
But there’s a weird thing that I think I’ll have with this story, though—something completely outside the writer’s ability to control, but something that makes it work for me on another level and in a way that it won’t work for anybody else. You see, I read this one while I was out on a walk—striding along, head down and gazing at my reader, following the sidewalk as I took in the path of the characters. About halfway through both the story and the walk, I had this feeling go through me—remembering my stepfather-in-law who we used to poke fun at because he was well-known for carrying around a paperback and reading as he took his own walks.
Grandpa Fuzz Face, as Brigid used to call him, was an energetic reader. He enjoyed about everything, and he’d talk excitedly about things in the books he liked. When we’d make fun of him for how he looked tromping down the road, his eyes would light up and his smile would get that comfortably wide thing that his smiles always did, and he’d laugh right along with us.
I’m pretty sure he’d like “Presents for Kitten” as is, but regardless, I’m willing to bet a hundred bucks he would have loved to go turtling.