[-1] The Dreaming Way
[+1] Papa Was a Gypsy
I like The Nimble Men too, so I don't want the points to come from there. The Dreaming Way didn't really impress me though. Both Papa Was a Gypsy and Nimble Men I found to actually be scary. And Oil of Dog is probably my favorite, for what that is worth.
Now let me defend Papa for a moment:
She absolutely didn't have to kill her brother, there was no reason for it. That was kind of the point, to my reading. She killed him because she was completely out of control and was making increasingly less justified decisions and hurting even the things she loved for no good reason. Also, the main character didn't get impaled by a sharpened stick. It was the Grandmother, she died (we thought) and then wasn't dead due to being evil and magical and diabolical and whatnot. The whole thing was a sort of Xanatos Gambit by Grandma.
Here is a bit of a thing I wrote after first listening:
You're never sure how in-control Elma really is, until the end, but you can vaguely feel her slipping, especially any of her thoughts involving power. I like all the ghosts, and the seeming ghostly chain-reaction, set off by Mama at the beginning, where Elma is increasingly more and more haunted. You really get a feel for everything spiraling out of control. ... Celebi has created a great (if hard to understand motivationally) villain by the end of the story, and the smaller ghost and charm level supernatural elements were entirely necessary. But why not leave it at that, with the possibility of interpreting the whole things as psychosis + superstition, rather than firmly committing to the supernatural?
That said, the ending is actually pretty good, Elma's emotions are perfectly described, you really feel for her, and the final line about love is great. Overall, Elma is an extremely well-drawn character, and the Southern Gothic setting is pretty well done too. I just wish we'd learned a bit more about Regina.
