Legendary Frybread Drive-In / Cynthia Leitich Smith, Editor / Book Review
LEGENDARY FRYBREAD DRIVE-IN
The road to Sandy June's Legendary Frybread Drive-In might not always be where you expect, but it's always where it needs to be, just around the bend on every rez or around the corner from every Native hangout.
The menu serves up traditional eats and childhood snacks you haven't had in years. The Legendary grandparents are always about, ready with wisdom and hard-earned advice. Live music and movie screenings keeps the night alive.
Sandy June's is a place where anything can happen, where family can reunite after long years apart. Where young people can take refuge. Where generations can come together. Where new love can blossom, and new stories can be told.
The menu serves up traditional eats and childhood snacks you haven't had in years. The Legendary grandparents are always about, ready with wisdom and hard-earned advice. Live music and movie screenings keeps the night alive.
Sandy June's is a place where anything can happen, where family can reunite after long years apart. Where young people can take refuge. Where generations can come together. Where new love can blossom, and new stories can be told.
THOUGHTS
This frybread drive-in is a magical place. The setting really is the star in this collection. When it comes to the stories themselves, well, they were rather... bland. But that just gave the setting more room to shine.
This frybread drive-in is a magical place. The setting really is the star in this collection. When it comes to the stories themselves, well, they were rather... bland. But that just gave the setting more room to shine.
PROS
| Magical Drive-In | There's something really magical about the frybread drive-in all these authors create. It's whimsical and fun, and it really comes alive through all of the interweaving stories. It feels mystical, not-quite-concrete, but at the same time, it feels like a place you could stumble into just when you need it, as tangible as anything. And I loved that. |
| Diverse Characters | I really loved the diaspora of these pages. So many different cultures come together at this drive-in, creating a rainbow of diverse Native perspectives. I loved the blending of cultures into one form of solidarity and community, one out-of-space, out-of-time magical place where all these voices can come together in harmony. It's a great reading experience! |
| Brand New, Time and Again | Anthologies on a theme can have lots of problems, but the most common one I've encountered is that all the stories start to feel the same. They echo; they rhyme. And that's always a shame. But that is definitely not the case here. Every story feels different. The setup, the characters, the flavor: it's always changing, one story to the next. Every story kicks off on a different note, and nothing converges into the same tired old plotlines. And I liked that. I liked that the stories themselves were diverse, not just their casts and cultural backgrounds. |
CONS
| Short story is an art separate from novel or verse, and while I have no doubt every one of these authors is a master at writing (and I will definitely be seeking out the long-form writing for those I haven't read yet independently), none of these short stories come close to reaching what a short story can and should be. They're just snippets, vignettes that don't matter much. And that was kind of sad, all things considered. | Not-So Story |
| Though I said what I said above (and I'll be sticking to that) about these stories each feeling unique and different, I will also say that they're almost all on the romance side. They're all meet-cute in a way that's fun sometimes and rushed other times. I liked seeing these sparks fly at the drive-in, but I would have liked to see other connections hitting it off here, too. I don't know. Not everything's got to be about love connections, you know? | Romance-Heavy |
| This is a feel-good anthology, and I respect that. But I don't know that these stories had the chops to pull of being feel-good. Happy endings have to be earned. The magic of the drive-in means a lot of healing can happen here, and I love that about it. But these stories are so short, everything seems to happen too quickly. It didn't feel real, and not in a way that added to the mystique of the drive-in. In a way that just doesn't reflect real life, real relationships and people and just good storytelling. It left a kind of depressing aftertaste in its wake not because the stories were depressing but because they weren't invested enough in the realism to make the happy endings feel, well, real. Like a possibility. Like something to hope or strive for in your own life. And that's sad. | Shallow |
Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
6/10
Fans of Ashley Herring Blake & Rebecca Podos's anthology Fools in Love will love falling in love at this drive-in. Those who adored the project behind Margaret Owen & Hanna Alkaf's The Grimoire of Grave Fates will like the way these vignettes weave together to create a unified tapestry.
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Note: I was provided with an ARC by the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions here are my own. |
I'm glad you liked it for the most part. I've always wondered about fry bread. I've always wanted to try it.
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