Title: Isobel Avens Returns to Stepney in the Spring
Author: M. John Harrison
In: Black Feathers (Ellen Datlow)
Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!)
My Bookshelves: Contemporary, Horror, Mental health
Dates read: 12th April 2019
Pace: Slow
Format: Short story
Publisher: Pegasus Books Ltd.
Year: 2017
5th sentence, 74th page: London was as quiet as a nursing home corridor.

China loves Isobel. But Isobel is aiming for something higher. Something that might end their lives together and create a new world view.

This story made me think of anorexia and other eating disorders. Although the storyline features Isobel Avens trying to turn into a bird, her constant weight loss and wish to be something else has serious echoes of an eating disorder. It made me incredibly uncomfortable reading this too, especially since I know a lot of women who have suffered with such horrible body issues…

Unrequited love is a bitch. And honesty, I think it’s what shifts this story into the horror realm for me. It feels like one of the more terrifying things that anyone can experience… China gives his everything to Isobel. And yet, at the end of the tale, that is not enough and he must find a way to either move on in life or be miserable forever…

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A Little Bird Told Me Review ->

Image source: Amazon