“Felix Starro” and “Superassassin” are short stories from Lysley Tenorio’s book Monstress. These stories explore the theme of being “in between”. There is a duality in human nature and in every person there is a constant battle between good and evil. But in Tenorio’s short stories, the duality is not so black and white. The characters lie somewhere in between. Even the title of the book, Monstress, reflects this idea. The word “monstrous” means something evil and grotesque, without middle ground. “Monstress” is not actually a word and cannot be defined; yet it implies something softer, something other than a monster. The inability to define the exact nature of Tenorio’s characters is a common thread in both stories. “Felix Starro” is the story…show more content… As a child of mixed ethnicity, he does not feel like he belongs in either culture and remains nameless in the story. His status as an outsider is mostly depicted through the bullying and racism he suffers in school from his archenemies Brandon DeStefano and Tenzil Jones, “Brandon reads my paper to Tenzil in what is supposed to be my voice, adding an accent that isn't mine.” The boy in “Superassassin” is also subjected to racism from his best friend Luc’s Korean grandmother, “I'm The Filipino, the mutant friend who is too different for her to speak with, too weird to be allowed to come over.” The boy is written off by those around him as different and strange. In addition, his physical features are not entirely Filipino or American, “Though my skin is fair, I never burn in the sun, can barely manage a midsummer tan. When seasons change, so does the color of my hair, back and forth from brown to black. Despite my roundish face I have a unique bone structure that captures both shadow and light in just the right places, so that in the proper lighting my face can be startling. And my eyes - somewhere between slanted gashes and perfect ovals - are of two colors: the right is as brown as wet earth, and the left is jet black, a perfect obsidian orb.” His features are not a blend of Caucasian and Filipino genetics, they are a mix and match of different traits, sometimes one and sometimes the other. This hybridity causes him to believe he is a mutant and this belief becomes the source of his imagined
