This book has been sitting on my shelf for twenty years. I wish I had read it twenty years ago when I was in my twenties. I think I would have appreciated it more back then. Bender has a lovely imagination. I suppose the stories were just left a little too open-ended for me. I wanted a little more depth and a little more closure.

I dunno man, I kinda wish I could rate it 4.5. While the subject matter was not my total fave, lots of unrequited romance and parents dying, the stories were powerful enough that I had to physically put the book down and walk away for a few minutes. Her statement of fact one-liners were so so great. I really appreciated her writing style.

The titular story was by far the best; unfortunately, most of the stories in this brief book read like filler.

Disturbing, luminous, sad, erotic.

Aimee Bender is one of those authors who could write a dissertation on the invention of the phone book and I'd probably consider reading it. Even though I have to be in A Very Specific Mood for short stories, this was not difficult to melt into at all. Some of the stories were sexy; some were heartbreaking, some were luminous with a kind of darkly glittering magical realism. I loved each one, even when they made me shudder and look away. Delightful and fast read.

A summary:

1) wtf
2) wtf
3) k
4) why
5) ...
6) wow
7) wat
8) alright
9) well
10) yikes
11) interesting
12) womp womp
13) I liked this one
14) sure
15) hmm
16) but what about the backpack

1998 was a weird year, based on this book. Very odd, entertaining by being so bizarre, but to me not anything that will linger on in my mind.

Beautiful imagery in the usual Bender fashion, but did not really speak to me at any point unfortunately. Probably would've given it 4/5 if I read it at 17.

Bender has a knack for the absurd, and for presenting it with an almost more absurd normality. Like, as if it is a bit weird that a woman would give birth to her own dead mother, but life goes on and she still makes great stew.

I like that.

At least that's true for the first part of the short-stories in this book. The second part is completely pointless, the third part okay, but not as good. And no, I have no idea if there is any deeper meaning behind the division of the book into three parts. There was none that I could see, and I didn't spend too much time thinking about it, because, as amusingly absurd the stort stories are, none of are really worth analyzing. That's ok, though. Good entertainment doesn't necessarily have to have a deeper meaning.

I clearly went on a Bender bender in the last few weeks. I want to hang out with Aimee when I wake up and share all my random dreams because her stories remind me so much of them. I just LOVE her ability to capture me with completely out there vignettes that don't necessarily seem that out there to me.

Not as good as Willful Creatures, but what is

I love Aimee Bender’s writing. Her short stories are probably the weirdest things I’ve ever read, but they’re done so well. The Girl in the Flammable Skirt is possibly my favorite volume by Bender, full of super-short short stories that are funny and strange and grotesquely sexual and excellent all at once. I’m not sure any other author has managed to achieve such a different style so well; I think it’s distinctly a quality of Bender’s.

The premises for these stories are undeniably bizarre. A lover experiences reverse evolution; a father wakes up with a hole in his stomach; a pregnant teen falls in love with her hunchback step uncle; a grieving librarian has sex with 7 library patrons in one day; an imp-in-hiding has lustful thoughts about his mermaid classmate. The Girl in the Flammable Skirt is full of the improbable and awkward, yet somehow Bender manages to make them all seem beautifully normal. It’s a gift, truly.

I find myself returning to Aimee Bender’s prose not for her unusual sort of magical realism, but more for her prose, which is absolutely gorgeous. At times, the stories in this volume can seem crass, but at other times, they’re also surprisingly insightful, and speak to the human condition in a way that might be unexpected, for a short story about a woman whose husband returned from the war with plastic lips.

My favorite stories were “What You Left in the Ditch”, “Skinless”, “Legacy”, and “Call My Name” (which I’d read previously in a fiction writing class). Unfortunately, the titular story, “The Girl in the Flammable Skirt”, wasn’t really a stand-out addition to this short story collection, though it did offer one of the most memorable passages out of the entire set of 16 stories.

n  But what I kept wondering about is this: that first second when she felt her skirt burning, what did she think? Before she knew it was candles, did she think she’d done it herself? With the amazing turns of her hips, and the warmth of the music inside her, did she believe, for even one glorious second, that her passion had arrived?n

I think any reader who enjoys short stories and doesn’t mind the more grotesque side of the often lovely magical realism genre should give this story collection a chance. The Girl in the Flammable Skirt is excellent in terms of prose, and shows off Aimee Bender’s formidable creativity to its greatest advantage. I think that this is probably where to start if you’ve never read Bender before, but also a great place to come back to if you’ve already experienced her style.

This is the weirdest book I've ever read.

It's a collection of short stories but most of them make no sense at all. There's no plot or emotional depth. When I actually started to get into a story, it ended.. just like that. With no closure or an end. It just stopped.

I'm going to tell you about one of the stories in spoilers. Don't read it if you're planning on reading the book. Honestly, I wouldn't recommend you to waste your precious time on this book anyway.

There's this one story of a man who one day sees that he has a hole in his stomach. A see-through hole instead of skin. A few days later, his forty-three years old wife gets pregnant and guess what? She gives birth to her own damn mother. I'm not kidding. This is one of the stories in the book.

So yeah... don't bother wasting your time on this book.

This was a collection of stories that was unlike anything I've ever read. I have no idea how to describe these, other than to say that this is some of the most imaginative writing I've ever read. To say that the stories are a little 'out-there' would be an understatement.

I really enjoyed this collection. The author clearly has a vivid imagination and it shines here in all its glory. If you are able to suspend belief completely whilst reading a book, I urge you to pick this up. Completely crazy, but completely readable!