Normally I dislike first person revelatory introspection stories, but this by Katherin Nolte is smooth and quick enough to overcome the typical flippant and sassy attitude of a life gone wrong and the paths it might have taken instead.
Roseanne begins by telling us, "My breasts were important to me, but I wished I’d been born a genius." (p. 104) Right there, with the opening line, I felt this story would be different from all the rest because it was stylistically well done. It opened up the story with all kinds of quesitons while giving valuable insight into the mind of the narrator.
The story becomes one of extreme lack of self-confidence and family dysfuntion without being painfully corny or trite, and Nolte seems well familiar with the subtleties simile in getting a point across:
"Well, not stupid really, but I figured since I wasn’t a genius, why even try to be smart. It’s like those musicians who devote their lives to studying an instrument, only to attend a concert and hear another musician blow them away." (p. 104)
And a nice homage to Margaret Atwood’s short story, Endings, in closing with a "what if" frame of mind of the narrator as she offers the reader the same possibilites of her dreams as that of her reality.
Nolte’s writing style and use of different techniques certainly raised This is the Part to Wonder above the usual run of the mill stories in this vein.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology