Title: Strange Medicine
Author(s): Mike Russell
Publisher: StrangeBooks*
Pages: 146
Reading format: E-book
Genre: Short stories, English
Strange Medicine is a short story collection like you’ve never read before. It includes eight weird stories that don’t seem to make a lot of sense, but at the same time they do. In these stories we follow, among other things, a woman who’s in love with her phone; a man who hates the universe and a professor who seemed to have lost his intelligence. The stories definitely make you think, but they also make you laugh every now and then
I loved reading these stories. I cannot remember all of them that well, but reading them back and skimming over the text right now, I feel like rereading it soon. In the past I’ve read Russel’s book called Strungballs and I can still remember most of that one. It really stayed with me and comes back to me often. Do you know that episode of Spongebob where Squidward is all alone in a white void? It felt like that. The stories of Strange Medicine take place in the world quite like the one we know, but it still gave me a similar experience as Strungballs did.
Although things happen in the stories of Strange Medicine that don’t happen in the real world, I could easily imagine what was described. Mike Russell is a master with words and the amount of detail he puts in his stories is just amazing. I was once again more drawn to the longer stories in this collection. My favourites were “Mime” and “Brain”!
If you’d like to read something entirely different from the books you’re used to, I’d highly recommend checking out Mike Russell’s stories!
*I received a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own!
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