This was an enjoyable read and I would recommend it. thanks for letting me have an advance copy. I'm new to this author.

Quite a collection of dark, surreal, magical realist stories... more words because there is a 100 word requirement despite my actual posted review not having that many words

Not really my cup of tea. I thought the stories didn’t really make much sense and I couldn’t bring myself to finish it I’m afraid.

Speak Gigantular has made me interested in reading Okokie's novel, which I believe will be better. I was very interested in these short stories and in its characters but a bit disappointed at their abrupt endings.

A wonderfully weird collection of short stories, surreal, and magical; stories told in elaborate metaphors that are never what they first seem; stories of loss and love and hatred and bliss and human connection. Those stories that were on the right side of weird were really something else and I am super glad to have read this book. This is why I started reading more short fiction!

I like weird fiction, I like stories that straddle the line of the real and the surreal and thus I absolutely adored this debut collection of short stories. The stories are unapologetically weird and different and never go the way of the expected and the author kept me guessing (wrong) the whole time. There is something different about the way the author constructs sentences that I can't quite put my finger on but that I adored.

While there were some stories that fell slightly flat for me, overall I really enjoyed the collection. The power of the great stories and the wonderful language made me overlook some of the characterisation that wasn't quite on point enough. I cannot wait to see what the authors comes up with next!

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I received an arc of this book curtesy of NetGalley and Jacaranda Books in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for that!

This collection of short stories published by @jacarandabooks is a real gem ! The stories are out of this world as they are full of magic and entice you into the surreal world inside the Author's head ! From a boy with a tail, to a woman who seeks feet worshippers, the book is rich in strange details that have the reader perplexed.
The writing is unlike I've ever seen before , and it overwhelms you that a person is capable of weaving such intricately magical tales. It took me a while to read it as many a times , I had to pause and ponder on the world created by the writer... The protagonists are mostly women , and it fit perfectly into my aim to read books on and by women through March!
Overall , this book is mysterious and has you drawn to it like a moth to fire. The writing is so rich , honest and impactful , it leaves you wanting more.
You can read the full review on www.merakipost.com

'Darkness motivates men, mobilises armies. Use it. You are a warrior. Show me your roar. People are scared of your power, frightened of what you can do with it.' Irenosen Okojie has a powerful voice which can upturn ships and mellow down racing bulls. The book came to light when the author won Jhalak prize. Not too many Goodreads ratings to its credit, readers are really missing out on a great read.
The collection of the short stories is in one word - unpredictable.

Cover page
The cover page displays a curly haired mystic woman who has words, where there ought to be, her mouth. The black and white cover page is a wonderful composition. The font compliments the graphic image. It keeps well the magical realism and the mysticism of the book intact. The book is not to be talked about but to experience from the inside.

Characters
There are several one-of-their-kind characters in each story. Henri Thomsen from 'Animal Parts' is a regular ten-year-old boy from a danish town, except that he has a long furry tail which his mother makes holes in his trousers for. Balthazar from 'Outtakes' knows something about everything, including octopus festivals, chortling volcanoes, and placenta-eating women. He is a wonderful character to fall in love with and assume a future. But there are always twists in most wonderful stories.
Nadine is a black girl missing. But she is not important. Missing black girls are never important. But he has decided to find out what has happened to her. An epileptic boy who can make electricity with his brain, enough to power laptops and start kettles boiling. He gives a damn.
There are several out of the box characters. Some of these characters force you to think. Not just think but move mountains. Some of them just exist like a voice talking to you through half crazy jarring buzz.
All the characters have one thing in common, though. They are all memorable.

Content
The book is a collection of short tales of peculiar people. The collection begins with 'Gunk' where the mother asserts the importance of owning one's own skin and not to be 'a waste of space'. It is a powerful essay which possesses you right from the first sentence when it begins with 'Get up. Try to hold your world. You can't. You let it slip'. It talks about how darkness motivates men, mobilises armies. And how you can use it to start a war. These are all words spoken by a black in the world where the color of your skin defines your destiny and how you can shape it yourself rather than letting the world decide for you. This remains my favourite piece in the entire book.
Then comes 'Animal Parts' where a mother births a child with a long furry tale. The story is magical realism sighed with emotions. There are glimpses of mental illness seen in the stories and this one, in particular, will move you like nothing else.
'Fractures' is about two identical twins who have had a bad past and one blames the other for it. Hilly is bitter towards Grace and a small temptation drags her to wanting to live Grace's life. It is a story with an unexpected ending. An extraterrestrial being and a girl who attracts bad luck.
'Walk with Sleep' is another magical realism story with a beautiful beginning and even more beautiful end.
'Nadine' is a story of a black girl missing and our protagonist trying to find her since a black girl missing does not attract as much attention. He wants to know what exactly happened to her. This is another story not to be missed.
'The thumbnail interruptions' is another story with a streak of mental illness. A photographer who is drugging his girlfriend and sending her photos to her colleagues. This is one of my favourite tales in the book.
There are other stories such as 'The Arrangement of Skin', 'Snapper', 'Following' and 'Vegas' that leave you engrossed throughout the story and stunned at the end.
The stories have an acute trace of mental illness sprinkled generously throughout the book. The imagination runs wild and meets all kinds of creatures in the stories.

Language
The author has a great narrative style. You can read minds and swallow emotions like you have dry swallowed a pill. It sticks in your throat till you are jagged by its presence with a little bit of water in your eyes. Such is the writing style.

Good points
The cover page is simple yet meaningful. The characters are one of their kinds. The stories are inventive. The author has a different voice of her own which becomes the voice in the story, very intimate.

Bad points
A few of the stories may need more than one reading to understand.

Overall
I recently started exploring the genre of short stories and this author has definitely piqued my interest. She is definitely one of the best story tellers I have read.

Whom do I recommend this to
Those who like to let themselves loose are going to love this collection of short stories.

Speak Gigantular is an extremely diverse collection of stories that range from the supernatural, magical, spiritual, sexual, sensual and realistic. Okojie has an extremely enchanting writing style that immediately inserts you into each story. After reading this collection, she is an author that I would love to see more from. Her stories were so transformative and unpredicateble. I was never sure at the beginning of any of the stories how the narrative would play out. I just knew that each story would unravel itself in time and that I would be amazed, astounded, shocked or in some way moved by the ending. Some stories stood out more than others to me, but overall this was a very well written set of stories that I would definitely recommend and reference back to.

Strange stories that often featured vivid visuals. More than tone poems, but not exactly plot-based.

Featuring men in chicken costumes, grown women with imaginary friends, romantic partners picked from a garden, Speak Gigantular is an iccentric read told with real verve. Okojie has a knack for heartfelt stories full of real weirdness.

Speak Gigantular
by Irenosen Okojie
published by Jacaranda Books

My review:
Speak Gigantular is a fascinating collection of surreal, and sexually charged short stories from Irenosen Okojie. Strange and unexpected elements of nightmare and magic merge with everyday urban life and heighten the predominant themes of loneliness, alienation and mental breakdown. Set mainly in London, but with a few further afield these are narratives to dip into and enjoy.
In Animal Parts, the first story in this collection, Henri is born in Denmark with a long, grey tail, but it’s not until he is subject to months of graphic bullying that he realises ‘His mother had lied. He wasn’t special. He was cursed.’ The story builds to a shocking conclusion where his mother is forced to an act of savagery to make him socially acceptable.
Loneliness itself becomes a character in Footer where a woman succumbing to ‘the feeling of being worshipped, to a delicious, deviant unspooling attached to a man’s tongue flicking between her toes’ dates a series of foot fetishists. It’s only at the end that we find out there have been a ‘series of sexually motivated disappearances’ and that the woman is not all she seems.
Snapper details the relentless disintegration of a relationship that has begun after a road crash: ‘I was holding a bag of oxtail on Green Street at Upton Park when the accident happened.’ Cronenberg’s Crash came to mind as I read this story.
In this collection of unusual and imaginative stories Irenosen Okojie has created a language that is vigorous and exciting. Just a few feel as if they’re trying too hard to be quirky and strange and don’t justify their inclusion, but Speak Gigantular is a memorable set of stories that I would recommend to anyone interested in the continuing revitalisation of the British short story.
Biography:
Irenosen Okojie, winner of a Betty Trask Award 2016 for her debut novel Butterfly Fish, is a writer, curator and Arts Project Manager. She has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Southbank Centre, and the Caine Prize. Her writing has been featured in the Guardian and the Observer. She was a selected writer by Theatre Royal Stratford East and Writer in Residence for TEDx East End. In 2014, she was the Prize Advocate for the SI Leeds Literary Prize. She is a mentor for the Pen to Print project supported by publisher Constable & Robinson. She lives in east London.

Publisher:
Jacaranda Books is a relatively new publisher priding itself on ‘Promoting diversity from boardroom to bookshelf’. www.jacarandabooksartmusic.co.uk

Ali Thurm 30.12.16