Title: How Lovely to be a Woman: Stories and Poems

Author: Tiffany Michelle Brown

Release date: May 1st, 2023

Huge thanks to Tiffany for sending me an early digital of this one. I have it preordered but wanted to do my best to help support her as she’s always been an amazing supporter of mine. I’ve previously read one of her stories in an anthology before this, but was excited to see what her author’s voice was and how it weaved and flowed throughout an entire collection.

I will say this right off the bat – I’m a 41-year-old, CIS, straight, white guy. I am absolutely NOT the target market for this collection, but you know what – that didn’t matter. Each story and poem within are really engaging, wonderfully written and you can either take them at face value as simply a story or you can read them and take in the deeper meanings and implications within each.

What I liked: This collection starts off with a bang and never wavers from there on out. The stories crackle and have an emotional depth to them, which made this one a harder one to really tackle, as I needed to pace myself more than I usually do, wanting to digest each story once done.

Standouts for me were;

The Price of Motherhood – the opening story is one of the most visceral pieces in here. We follow Leslie, who has struggled with infertility and losing her significant other to another woman because of that, who orders an AI baby from an infomercial. At first things seem perfect, but soon she realizes she’s in over her head. This one was gut wrenching and really focused on themes of fertility and the lengths some will go for social media likes.

Something Black – The first of a few office/work based stories, this one features Lois, our MC, who discovers a new algorithm that’ll help make the company more profitable. But, the more her boss won’t make time for her and take her seriously, the more crows appear. A fantastic, quick piece of brutality.

Pursuit – a flash fiction piece, we follow along in the mind of a woman walking to her car at night knowing someone is pursuing her. Very unnerving and one that’ll hit home for anyone who has ever experienced that sensation of being followed – even more if you’re someone who has been followed.

Extraction – a fun body horror story, Val wants to be more beautiful. Getting some new makeup, she falls asleep. When she wakes up, the makeup is fused to her face. So, she begins to try and remove it. Horrifically amazing and a great riff on beauty standards.

This Woman’s Work – another flash fiction piece, all I’ll say is it involves the moon and a transformation.

Seeing Double – this one was a blast. Frat guy, Brad just wants to hook up and finally get laid. When he finds out that there’s more to the hot chick he’s making out with, he gets put into a precarious position and wishes things would’ve went very differently.

The Wailing – perhaps my favorite story in this collection (and one I hope Brown expands upon in the future), it opens with a woman making an important presentation when one of her teeth pop out. At home, another. And things escalate from there. We get a mysterious man and a frantic 911 call and a story that will absolutely make you squirm and want to turn the lights on.

The poetry within was great as well, as were the other stories I didn’t mention. I just found the ones I’ve listed to be the standouts for me.

What I didn’t like: Again, as I said, I’m not the target market here. But, I did love this collection and found Brown’s voice to be very refreshing. BUT – if you rail against the wokeness of the world, if you wish the former orange one was still in office and if you are happy with the current state of the US, where women and anyone that isn’t an old white, Christian male are losing their rights, you may want to stay away from this.

Why you should buy this: Tiffany Michelle Brown should be really proud with this collection. From start to finish the stories and poems create a phenomenal experience for the reader and her writing voice and take on dark fiction was wonderfully macabre. There are trigger warnings listed in the back for those who may need them, and that shows you just how dark this set of stories goes. There’s no holding back here, no pushing you to the edge only to back off. Brown makes sure to knock down all of the pins with each and every throw and the reader is all the better for it.

Really fantastic collection.

5/5