Guh. Guh. Guh. How do I even. What are words.

I love Cat. I have and will always love Cat. Since she was writing things on live journal and puzzles in webpages and writing letters to fans with wax seal stories inside of them that came to our mailboxes. I have and will always be in love with her writing, wanting to eat it slowly like a last meal, feeling my heart grow and shrink, the horror and the beauty. I was so deeply in love and moved by so many of these stories, and wholly different quotes in different places. I loved it so much I even reread the pieces in here -- poetry and stories -- I'd already managed to track down before.

Everyone should read this. Everyone. Ever. ( )

That's some serious Kelly Link style magical realism here. ( )

Long ago, in a far-off mythical land, I discovered that Cat Valente is brilliant. Not only brilliant, but I love everything she's ever written and it DOESN'T BOTHER ME IN THE SLIGHTEST if I am forced to read quite a few stories that were published in other collections.

Truly.

That's the strength of these stories. They're all brilliant no matter how many times you read them and it still feels fresh every single time. I'm not used to that. If it was any other author I might get a sinking feeling and skip the remembered story and start getting anxious about all the rest.

Not with Cat. Cat reaches DEEP into my subconscious and toys with all the archetypes like she is a goddess, wraps them up in nice meta-bows, and then tosses them at your dream-self like a guided-missile made of dragons and unicorns.

And it's SMART. Always so smart. :) And I feel the need to shout Catherynne M. Valente's name from the mountaintops.

Her fantasy and SF cuts to the very heart of everything, doing it more than lyrically before turning you into cotton candy that will be forced to eat itself.

Barbes-à-papa-cannibalism-literature.

I can't recommend her stuff enough. I truly can't. It's like eating the bread in our dreams. :) ( )

Read. ( )