Stories from the Womb - Anna Edington - ★★★.¾

AUTHOR: Anna Edington

GENRE: Feminist Anthology.

RATING: 3.75 Stars.

In a Nutshell: An atypical story collection with three strong woman protagonists at the helm. Introspective in style, this anthology will work better for literary fiction lovers.

‘Stories from the Womb’ gives you a big clue right in the title that the tales are going to be woman-oriented, possibly even feminist. How far does that promise match up? To a great extent.

The book begins with a brilliant author's note, stating how 'Women are the left-handers of the world' and going on to explain this point, linking it to our need to adapt and fit into the masculine way of life to prove ourselves. The question raised is: do we need to prove ourselves as equal to men when in fact we ought to be the best women we could be?

Thus setting a provocative undertone for the stories, the book tells us the stories of three women:

👩 Lilith: Supposedly Adam’s first wife before Eve, and the primordial she-demon.

👩 Freyja: A woman whose story is inspired by the eponymous Norse goddess of nature, love, fertility and war.

👩 Quayla: A mermaid who changes forms to make her way in a man's world.

Two mythological characters and one fantastical character. Each strong. Each trying hard to fit in with the requirements of the man in her life. Each let down by said man. Each moving on independently.

While the writing style wasn’t my usual cup of tea, becoming somewhat abstract and philosophical at times, I still found the stories gripping and couldn’t put them down midway. The three women at the helm had varied attitudes and approaches towards the men in their lives, and yet they were strong and independent, learning to make their own way out of the man’s shadow. While the three stories appear distinct, the fact is that all characters went through a similar arc of love, surrender, betrayal and moving on.

The above automatically means that the men in their lives are depicted as utter scumbags. I wish there were some redeeming feature about the male characters, but nada! They are shown as self-centred creatures who function only as per their own benefit. Even in a feminist work, constant male bashing becomes boring. A more realistic approach always works better for me.

The structuring of the stories is such that the book is divided into three parts, one for each woman. Each part begins with an introduction of the main character and the author’s perspective into her narrative choices. Then we have multiple episodic stories, all connected to the central character, with each episode taking the character towards the next stage of her life. This is quite an interesting writing device, but it left me confused about how to rate the stories. Do I rate the three main parts, or do I rate the 28 subparts (7 substories for Lilith, 12 for Freyja and 9 for Quaylo)? I chose the former option as the subparts were too short to be rated by themselves, and weren’t independent enough to stand on their own but worked only in conjugation with the other parts. Lilith’s tale was the best for me as it was compelling from start to end. Freyja’s story began wonderfully but the final sections were somewhat weak. Quayla’s story had the most potential but I found its progression the weakest. The ending was disappointing for this story.

All in all, this is a thought-provoking anthology that will work for a certain kind of reader. Definitely not for general consumption. Recommended to those who like feminist stories with deep content.

3.75 stars, based on the average of my ratings for the three stories.

My thanks to New Degree Press and NetGalley for the DRC of “Stories from the Womb”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.