A Phoenix First Must Burn: Sixteen Stories of Black Girl Magic,…

This collection of stories, all by respected African-American women, sets out to explore race and gender through speculative short fiction, all featuring young heroines. Whether set in the future or in folklore, or magical worlds, these stories portray their characters' strength, tenacity, and creativity. For this reader, the success of the stories was uneven, perhaps because the formatting of the e-galley made some of them difficult to follow. ( )

I received this book from a Bookish First giveaway. The opinions in this review are my own.

A Phoenix Must Burn is an anthology of sixteen stories by sixteen different authors. Not something that I would normally read. I am just not a short story person. I am very glad that I won this book because I ended up being very pleasantly surprised.

I loved all of the them. Each one had so much depth for such a short story. My favorite was The Witch's Skin. It felt very post-apocalyptic. I was also reminded of some of the fast ones that our government here in the present try to pull. We may not have a veil but we sure have dishonest politicians. I was also left wondering what happened to her and her unborn child.

All sixteen stories are worth the read. I thoroughly enjoyed each and everyone.

Thanks to Bookish First and Penguin Random House. ( )