Las chicas terribles

Vindictive secretaries, Mcjobs, spam, impossible loves, domestic possessions, neighbourhood pimps, amateur boys in love with their female best friends, MSN murders, white trash girls, gigantic beetles, nymphomaniacs with webcams, crazy spiritualists, junk food, water aerobics… and above all girls, dozens of them, terrible or wonderful, real or imagined, but always surprising and necessary. All these things can be found in Chicas terribles, the second collection by Pablo Vázquez, five stories where there’s room for both the craziest sense of humour and disappointment, for love that’s nearly always frustrated and sex that’s closer to a failure to get it up than a celebration of carpe diem. Tragicomic stories with real and recognizable protagonists, affected by an inevitable and continual astonishment at the world, where there is no other alternative than to survive.