High-brow or downright pretentious, good PNR or sparkly vampires, I don't care about the premise so long as it entertains me.
You know, I really wish publishers would stop using Angela Carter in blurbs. It's not that they're always wrong, but for devoted Carterites like myself, it builds up expectation to a ridiculous degree. (I'm still holding off reading some of her early works and journalism because then I would be unbearably sad.) The woman had a vast and complex body of work, and all reviewers seem to remember is that she had a revisionist collection of fairy tales, ergo, any revisionist collection of fairy tales is like it.
I find it especially ironic when the comparison is made for a debut work. Carter's early novels were nothing like the later ones - the fairy tales and magical realism and Shakespeare came much later - but they were the ones that were critically acclaimed. "The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr. Hoffman" was the work that killed the critical love, but made her into the writer most people know and love. Now, we use novels from that latter, unglorious period to sing the praises for new, up-and-coming novelists.
How fickle we all are! (And I say it in the most affectionate way possible.)
Anyway, this Long Intro (TM) was my way of saying: I love Angela Carter and I did not think it was a good comparison to make between her style and that of Lucy Wood.
"Diving Belles" drew me in with the promise of magical tales and the Cornish coast. It's arguably one of the most beautiful places in all of England, and any book that has mermaids on the cover has me sold, hook, line and sinker. (Although, because I'm moving constantly, I managed to hold my enthusiasm in check until I got to my local library.) According to the acknowledgements, the short stories in this collection grew from the ones she created for her writing class at university.
If I had to describe the stories in a word, I'd say they are "experimental." Other words: playful, exploratory, whimsical, creative... and unfinished. The latter was more true for the first half than the second - the stories there have a fuller arc, a more distinct finish. On the other hand "Diving Belles," which is the opening story, seems to cut off mid-scene. It was very strange - I definitely felt like there was more to the story, so why couldn't we have the resolution?
Keep on reading, and the stories get better, more fleshed out. I'm not getting a very concrete sense of Wood's style as of yet, but it is promising. I'll be looking out for her next book. For this one, though, I recommend checking it out of the library first.