#1 "A State of Variance" by Aimee Bender, read on 9/18/13. I SO wish I would've started this project when I started the collection that this story is from, The Color Master. I love Aimee Bender so much. Seriously, after reading The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake and this, my second collection of her short stories, I'm totally in love with her.
This story is about a mother and her son, both born with features that are perfectly symmetrical. Sounds like it may be quite boring right? Well it's not :p Bender shows with this story what value we place on appearance. There has been lots of research showing that people distrust people with symmetrical features. I've actually read some of it during my studies getting my degrees. Basically, the more perfect a person looks, the less likely they are to be trusted. Even though the mother and son may not be perfect looking beauty wise in this story, their features are perfectly symmetrical and therefore they live lives that are solitary...people are afraid to get too close to them.
When the son in the story tries to injure himself or have someone else injure him, even his injuries heal symmetrically. It's not until he can "trick" this trait of his that he can find true love finally. As is always the case with Bender, there's an aspect of magical realism to the story as well and it was just beautiful!!
I only have two stories left in this collection and I don't want it to end :(
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