Book review: Tell Me Yours, I'll Tell You Mine by Kristina Ten
Kristin Ten expertly entwines humor and dread in this collection of strange, unsettling stories. Paper dolls come to life and take revenge; a computer game teaches a strange, possibly demonic language; a water dragon is entrapped by a cheating card player, and a girls’ volleyball team is caught in a horrifying cult dynamic. Children’s games and folklore form the basis of many of these stories; this book is stepped in the 90s’ milieu. In Ten’s hands, nostalgia takes a sideways turn: the familiar and mundane are just slightly askew, or recast in a dramatically new light. A childhood camp legend comes to life in “Bunny Ears” and childhood games become the basis for officially approved methods of predicting love in “Approved Methods of Love Divination in the First-Rate City of Dushagorod.” Ten’s stories explore issues of identity and immigration. Most of all, they examine the experience of girlhood and womanhood in the 90s and beyond: the fierce adolescent need to belong, the anxie...