Boobs

by Suzy McKee Charnas

First published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, July 1989

Suzy Charnas offers a fresh perspective on alienated youth through a very old fantasy idea. Puberty is tough on anyone, but especially on "well-endowed" girls, who get a lot of unwanted attention in addition to the monthly curse. When you're a werewolf, well, the curse takes on a whole new meaning, and bad things happen to people who hassle you.

Also available in:
Territoires de l'inquiétude, 7 (French: Nibards)
The Mammoth Book of Werewolves
The New Hugo Winners, Vol. 3 1989-1991
The Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy by Women
Hugo & Nebula Award Winning Stories from Asimov's Science Fiction
Women Who Run with the Werewolves: Tales of Blood, Lust, and Metamorphosis
Visions of Wonder: The Science Fiction Research Association Reading Anthology
Isaac Asimov's Werewolves
Children of the Night: Stories of Ghosts, Vampires, Werewolves, and Lost Children
Music of the Night
Stagestruck Vampires and Other Phantasms
The Urban Fantasy Anthology

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fantasy, Young Adult, Fiction, Supernatural, Audiobook

Nook

First published July 1, 1989

About the author

Suzy McKee Charnas, a native New Yorker raised and educated in Manhattan, surfaced as an author with WALK TO THE END OF THE WORLD (1974), a no-punches-pulled feminist SF novel and Campbell award finalist. The three further books that sprang from WALK (comprising a futurist, feminist epic about how people make history and create myth) closed in 1999 with THE CONQUEROR’S CHILD, a Tiptree winner (as is the series in its entirety).

Meanwhile, she taught for two years in Nigeria with the Peace Corps, married, and moved to New Mexico, where she has lived, taught, and written fiction and non-fiction for forty five years. She teaches SF from time to time, and travels every year to genre conventions around the country and (occasionally) around the world.

Her varied SF and fantasy works have also won the Hugo award, the Nebula award, the Gigamesh Award (Spain), and the Mythopoeic award for Young-Adult fantasy. A play based on her novel THE VAMPIRE TAPESTRY has been staged on both coasts. STAGESTRUCK VAMPIRES (Tachyon Books) collects her best short fiction, plus essays on writing feminist SF and on seeing her play script first become a professionally staged drama in San Francisco. Currently, she’s working at getting all of her work out in e-book, audio, and other formats, and moving several decades’ worth of manuscripts, correspondence, etc. out of a slightly leaky garage and sent off to be archived at the University of Oregon Special Collections. She has two cats and a gentleman boarder (also a cat), good friends and colleagues, ideas for new work, and travel plans for the future.

Reviews

[Ruxandra Grrr · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a kind of puberty horror / monster horror from the perspective of a girl who turns into a werewolf starting with her first period. Might feel a little been there, done that now, but I think it was more radical back then. Wanted to read this because getting a lot of unwanted attention when your boobs grow faster and bigger than most of your class was an absolute pest during my puberty / teenage years. And I related to this a lot. It was pretty gory, with visceral prose, laden with bodily fluid descriptions, CW: animal death.

Cathartic for me, for sure.

This was a prelude to my plan to read some Suzy McKee Charnas after reading her essays and letters in Khatru Symposium: Women in Science Fiction

Read it here.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Online copy: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/rea...
1989 story. Not reread recently. The class bully gets his, in pretty grotesque fashion. Werewolf story. Won the 1990 Hugo short-story award.
Many award noms, besides the Hugo win: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cg...
Recommended reading. A Charnas story, which means it gets . . . grim. I liked it, but am in no hurry to reread it.

[Buck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Werewolves are my favorite monster, and for those of you not hip, the amount of quality material in this sub-genre is severely lacking. This short story is one of the few good ones. It’s well ahead of “Ginger Snaps” and “Raw” in its depiction of female coming of age as a monstrous transformation. Honestly, though, the transformation here feels far more empowering, even if Charnas hints at dark things to come in the future. One of the most unsettling aspects of the story is the childlike innocence of the narration describing absolutely terrifying misogyny and abuse. Proving once again, that people are the real monsters.

[Ali alhusainy · Rating 4 out of 5]

a very entertaining short story with horror elements, by Suzy McKee Hugo award winner of 1990

[Sheila · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well this short story was certainly a unique take on a young girls journey into puberty, developing breasts ahead of her classmates (and having a class bully start calling her "Boobs"), then when she gets her period on the night of the full moon she turns into a werewolf. Let's just say things don't end well for the class bully.

[Anita · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very short read in which puberty turns a girl's (school) life into a pain and her body into a wolf. There's plenty of symbolism here for you, but I enjoyed it for even the base story.

[Darlene Vendegna · Rating 4 out of 5]

RIP Suzy McKee Charnas. Thanks for this deliciously decadent coming of age story. Werewolves and puberty a dangerous combination.

[genrejourneys · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Read on the digital archive “The Tales of Mystery and Imagination”)

Thinking about how much I admired animals at that age. Cats, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, wolves. Slick with fur, silent and predatory. Was I thinking of ways out of my body?

Touched by how the stray far too honest remarks really sold the adolescent tone. My tongue was so loose then, I was so bold. I knew everything, at that age, except what my body was doing.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Puberty + werewolves? Hell yes.

[cobwebbing · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, that sure was a thing that happened. The depictions of abuse and gore made me wince but this definitely has strong themes and a commitment to the voice of the main character. I can see why it won a Hugo.

[Maggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it!! Finally, a story where a jerk gets his! ;) Of course I don't condone violence, but it's nice to read fiction where a creap gets whats coming to him. Thank you, thank you, thank you. :)

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was an okay read. If it was longer I probably could have got into it more, but as a short story there was nothing that stood out as new or original on the werewolf theme.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good for her!

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rage-y but fun.
I have to think the author should have been more careful about the name of her first story to win a Hugo. Now "Boobs" will be on all her book-jackets for life.

[Lauren Kube · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the normal sort of thing I'd read but I really enjoyed it. It's a short science fiction story but it is a super interesting take on puberty and girlhood. I would recommend.

[RedDagger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun little story, condenses down all the essentiall werewolf notes into a piece on periods and puberty years before Ginger Snaps.

[Kedi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just sums it up right. Once puberty hit, you feel like you can't defend yourself anymore. How I wish I would become stronger and not weaker, just once a month. Also the best friend was funny.

[Filbi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read as part of Isaac Asimov's Werewolves anthology. Good short story that highlights the alien, amoral thoughts of an animal taking over a human mind.

[Zombie Lettuce · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Ginger Snaps and I loved this short story

[Lucía · Rating 4 out of 5]

después de leerme esta historieta, ojalá haber podido transformarme en un lobo cuando estaba en el instituto!

[tere · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, girl, maul his ass. Sometimes you’re fourteen and you just need to let all your repressed rage and emotions out. Hell is a teenage girl.

[Eija · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tissit - antologiasta Sielusi hipiä ja Aikakone 3/1990

[Ragav]

Boobs