Short Story Wednesdays ? On Expectations ? Amy Reads

No new reviews of any stories today from Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters, we decided to take a week off. Expect a review of the next section next week. Today I want to talk a bit about expectations when it comes to reading and how it can affect our reading experiences, and I want your opinion.

Kailana and I were both really excited for this collection of fairy tales that promised to give us tales that featured fantastic female characters of all kind. The title promises fearless girls, it promises wise women, and it promises beloved sisters. Because it was defined as a ?definitive source? and ?the first of its kind to feature a variety of multicultural heroines? we came to the collection with very high expectations. Sadly, we are both feeling quite let down by the actual stories that we have been reading.

While the stories mostly all feature women, the male gaze is very present in many of them and the women are often relegated to side roles at the end or are ignored. Many of the ?heroines? only get ahead using the stereotypical and hated ?female guile? ? they are conniving, backstabbing, lying, etc. Lastly, I have been getting more and more disgusted by the notes Ragan includes at the end of her stories and how much they promote US culture over the cultures of the stories themselves.

There is no denying that many of these stories are a clear improvement on the traditional hero centered tales that feature women only as witches or princesses that need to be vanquished or rescued. There is no denying that there are more stories from around the world in this collection than in most others. There is no denying that this collection is more than we?ve had before. But somehow that doesn?t seem like enough. Because we had expected and the title promises so much, I feel justifiably more?let down than if it was just a regular fairy tale collection and I could express surprise and happiness at a few great stories.

Does anyone else ever have issues like this? Where a decent book ends up being a huge let down because of high expectations or promises on the books part??

To see more about the book and the stories I?m talking about you can see our earlier posts here:?Introduction, Stories from Europe part 1, Stories from Europe part 2, Stories from America,?a quick note, Stories from Asia part 1, Stories from Asia part 2.

And Kailana?s earlier posts:?Introduction,?Stories from Europe part 1,?Stories from Europe part 2, Stories from America, Stories from Asia part 1, Stories from Asia part 2.

Source: http://amckiereads.com/2011/07/27/short-story-wednesdays-on-expectations/

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