In this short story a young woman, Carla, finds herself pregnant. Her boyfriend, Saul, wants her to have an abortion. Instead, Carla flees to the farthest place she can reach. Here, Native legends and a black husky named Raven lead Carla’s life in an unexpected direction.
For more stories by Inge Moore, check out: AS CRAZY AS YOU, A Collection of Short Stories; and REFLECTIONS AND ACCIDENTS, A Collection of Short Stories.
"Dancing Lights is a story that might appeal to Literary Fiction readers, but also those who like folktales or fairytales. "
Reviewer: Reader for Bookangel.
Carla discovers she is pregnant, but her boyfriend wants an abortion. She doesn't, and she moves as far away as she can to try and start a new life for herself and her child, only to find herself intrigued by a Native American myth and strange happenings, and a chained-up husky on a leash.
This is a difficult story to review because it was a difficult story to get into. In some ways it feels as if the story skims the surface of events, and there's a lot of background untold. The ending is ambigous, and I won't spoil it. It could either be happy or sad depending on how you read it.
The characters aren't really detailed, being more sketches despite the long length of time the short story takes place over. You don't get a real feel for her boyfriend, Saul, or why Carla acts like a woman fleeing abuse, or for her colleague Sadie who tells her the legend. This is possibly because even though it is in third person, the story follows Carla closely, and she has a real disconnect from other people. Carla herself isn't entirely sympathetic, although the story isn't long enough to get a real feel for her character. While not wanting to abort a child is understandable, she takes her boyfriend's money claiming she's going to have an abortion, and then uses it to fund her move, and her obsession with the dog is odd.
My real problem with this is that "Dancing Lights" is a short story, but it is a very short story, less than a third of the ebook you get as it ends at loc 180 of 571. The rest of the ebook is taken up by a sample of a novel by the author, and if I paid download fees I would be extremely annoyed.
Dancing Lights is a story that might appeal to Literary Fiction readers, but also those who like folktales or fairytales. If it were longer I would suggest it to urban paranormal, but I think it's too short. Rating:3
This sounds intriguing but doesn't sound like it was executed very well. I'm not a fan of ambiguous endings. That's so weird that the sample for a completely different book took up that much of the book! I would be super peeved if I'd bought it and found that out after the fact.
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