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A. K. Herman's debut � The Believers : Stories is a tantalizing and scandalous set of stories set in parts
of Tobago and Trininad. Some stories are better than the others. They all had a shocking factor, a horrifying end that made me flinch with every story.

This is why I love short story collections coz they are raw, short but impactful. In mere few pages, you get to be awestruck and you don't even have time to absorb that shock coz you have another story waiting for you to devour.

Some quotes which I found, well that made me feel something. Some are beautiful, some brutal but every single one will make you think hard. A. K. Herman is Caribbean author born and brought up in Tobago and Trininad and that's why the setting of her stories is the same. The book is both brilliant and heartbreaking for a debut.



* The believers �
Story of Ronald and his family where a church tries to takeover their life by being "kind". There's always some hidden motive behind kindness, isn't it?

if yuh know what a man want, yuh could own him. A food. A fuck. A money. A house. A car. Once that man take the thing he wanted from yuh hand, yuh could pet him like a dog and he go lick yuh hand. Then, when yuh ready, beat him like a dog too and he go convince he self that you do something for he that he couldn’t do for he self.



* Drink the dew
Story of a man and his life when he meets a girl named Queenie and marries her to have a family but there are sometimes no happy endings especially when love and hate come together.

That was how Queenie was. All she actions flow into one another, like river into sea. She was the mouth of the river. You could never know how deep she was.



* Exile
Exile was a story about a young girl Paula who is sent to her aunt in US because she is pregnant. Sometimes I wonder is your religion really good or worth to you, if the beliefs of that religion forces you to destroy your daughter's life? Only daughter's but never son's? One of the powerful stories in the collection. Loved the ending.

I will not be waiting for things to happen to me. I WILL BE HAPPENING TO THINGS.

Paula wondered if she was sent to live with Lorna because she belonged there. Keep the sinners together.



* Ready for the revolution?
A scholar Darren in US where he earns a prestigious position in university yet sometimes nothing changes for an outsider. Uncertain about his love interest, his life takes an uncertain path too.

That is how love happens. You panic at the thought of her dying.

Everyone gets angry in their native tongue.



* Love
A scandal. A Love child. Story around it.
I think that this story was interconnected with another story, drink the dew. Betty and Queenie.

We are a match. Complexion. We look at the world the same way. I have the womanhood to match his manhood. A match.



* Love story no. 8 : Jane and Philip
What a brilliant story. Mr. Cromwell hires a gardener for his garden to seduce his neighbour's wife while his own daughter is being seduced. The ending was tragic, hypocrisy in this story was blinding, I think this story was my favourite among the collection apart from exile.

In the meantime, Cromwell read poetry to Alice Brown on her narrow settee, while she commented on his evolving garden. Theirs, a proper seduction by the book!



* inside
This stroy was brutal and sad. A rich girl's obsession leads to a disastrous change in her lover's life. A story of trininadian Indian couple.



* The iridescent blue - black boy with wings (after Marquez)
I don't know what to take from this story really. I felt clueless. A group of friends come across a boy with wings with batlike appearance.

It makes me feel melancholic that how we human beings live on different continents, follow different religions, speak different languages and yet behave with same cruelty and animosity with others. I wish we had different similarity for once but sadly and unfortunately we are what we are.

Thank you Netgalley and A. R. Phillips Press LLC for the ARC in exchange of an honest review.