RaveFull StopThroughout these stories, Woods’ characters positions themselves as of the country, but also alien to it. It is where they are from as well as from where they have fled … The final, and title, story is the only one which is perhaps too on the nose, at least thematically, but it’s here that Wood’s lyricism shines above her content. A literal description of what a queer goth teenager does to occupy themselves in the country, (smoke, cut, make ‘fucked-up Barbie doll-head necklaces . . . Vietnam ear tokens honoring the violence of girlishness’ to freak out their neighbors) becomes a toe-tapping, tongue-wagging séance of its own. Echoing the very rhythm of a sermon while offering a how-to for political, cultural, and religious subversion, her prose bends, bleeds, and bulldozes.
