Reviews for Burlesques

The average rating for Burlesques based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-04-02 00:00:00 David Worthington This is a very good collection of Kiplings poems. Also includes he's favourite "IF"

Review # 2 was written on 2017-10-27 00:00:00 James Bowlin Jr Fourteen unforgettable stories of strong female characters. Flawless storytelling. My first time to read a book by Kim Edwards. I did not read her The Memory Keeper's Daughter. The reason why I bought and read this book was the multiple recommendations I got from my friends, Teresa, Tara, and Joan Winnek who all rated this book with 5 stars. That was in 2011. I actually bought this that year and read the first story, The Great Chain of Being. I thought it was good although a bit old-fashioned. It is about an African lady who is cheated by her selfish father. She ends up as an old maid because her father wants her to take care of him during his old age so when a suitor comes up to marry her, he says that she is good for nothing. Then in the end, the lady gets the house and becomes rich because the area they are living in becomes a commercial district. When I read this story, I said "well, it is good" but I did not pursue the reading and shifted to other books. Now it is 2014. Three years when I picked up this book again and read the second story, Spring, Mountain, Sea and oh boy I was floored! It is one of the short stories that I think I will never ever forget. So, beautiful that it lingered in my mind for weeks after reading it. The story of a Korean woman who marries an American GI during World War II and she names her kids Spring, Mountain and Sea. It is only in her mind that those names are because her husband cheated her. He put other names in their birth certificates. After reading this story, I kept on reading until the last, the fourteenth, and I all liked them. But this second story is the BEST. Not only in this book but also in all the other short stories that I've read in my 5 years of voracious reading here on Goodreads. The title story, The Secrets of a Fire King is about a circus performer who is in love with the sister of his protegee. You see it is not always women who are the central figures in the story. There are also men characters but in the background are the female characters and even if they play minor roles, they world of men still revolves in them. In this story, for example, the sister of the protegee is the reason why the circus performer (fire king) would want to teach the technique of fire eating to the sister's kid brother. It is also nice but the revelation in the second story is a lot better. The most popular story in the book is the story of Madame Curie's cleaning lady. Marie Curie (1867-1934) was this Polish physicist and chemist who discovered radioactivity and the first woman to win the Nobel Prize. The story is well-told. You would imagine yourself being in the room (laboratory) admiring those lights. When the cleaning lady brings her kids to admire those lights, you would feel that you are there with them, seeing them looking at those lights. Very powerful images. Edwards really has this magic to put into words her scenes and making her characters very interesting even if she only spends few pages (these being short stories) about them. They say that once in a while, a great book comes to you unexpectedly. This is one of those moments for me. Totally unexpected. I would have regretted it if I did not continue reading this after reading the first hum-hum story in 2011. Why did I take 3 years to pick this up again? I don't know. There are just too many books that came in between and caught my fancy. I guess I need to take more leads from my good GR friends from now on. Thank you to Teresa for recommending this WONDERFUL book!