Thursday, January 20, 2011

The Goats are Going Places

Short Story by Tina Connolly

A teenage girl moves in with her aunt and starts at a new junior high school. She quickly integrates into a social group, and pursues a boy for social advantage. She does such a good impression of Mean Girls that her witch of an aunt decides to teach her a lesson and gain a little respect. Unfortunately for our protagonist, I didn't mean "witch" idiomatically.

A story about teenage girls, for teenage girls, the lesson learned at the end was a bit heavy-handed although it was believable. There is plenty to enjoy here even if you aren't a teenage girl, but it isn't subtle, and there really isn't that much plot to work through. This isn't nearly as good as Connolly's Turning the Apples in Pseudopod, but I may well be nominating that for best of the year over there, so it's sort of a high standard to set. 3 out of 5 goat costumes are more real than you'd think.

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