I chanced upon this collection of short stories while wandering the fiction stacks at my local library. The title and the cover drew me in; I started reading the first story, and I couldn't put it down. I checked it out, took it home, and finished it within a few hours.

This collection is probably not for everyone. It's absurd, it's bizarre, it's surreal. Bender mixes sexuality, grief, and the imagination in a way that is at once fascinating and repellent. On first glance, many of the stories seem light, insubstantial, comical. Many of them take on the familiar style of fairy tales. But each one has a dark underbelly, much like life itself. They are confusing, incomplete, imperfect, and completely haunting. I finished the book and I found that I couldn't stop thinking about them. This is a book that will stick with me, and one that I will probably have to read again.

My favorite stories were "Drunken Mimi," a high school love story about an imp and a mermaid, both pretending to be human; "What You Left in the Ditch," the heartbreaking tale of a woman whose husband returns from the war with no lips and her attempts to deal with the loss; and "The Healer," a tale of two mutant girls in a small isolated town, one with a hand of fire, the other with a hand of ice.

Highly recommended for fans of magical realism and inventive symbolic prose. I loved it, in spite of, because of, all its weirdness. I will definitely be looking to read more by Bender. Five stars. ( )

The Girl in the Flammable Skirt: Stories by Aimee Bender (1999)

This is probably my most favorite collection of stories ever written. They're just so weird and elegant. ( )

I love, love, love this collection of short stories. Aimee Bender's stories take place in a profoundly unrecognizable reality grounded firmly through her perceptive insights on the nature of humanity. ( )

kind of like female george saunders, but not as consistently strong. quick read. recommended by ben, august 2008.