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zsommers's review
4.0
Deserves more attention. At first, the darker elements of the stories were dragging me down. Addiction, overdose, death. Then, like an unassuming little flower, hope started to peek out at the end of some of the stories. The final story then redeemed the darkness of the earlier stories with a full showing of a balance between dark reality and bright future.
The style drew me in. I'm not an expert in literature or anything, but this is the kind of work that you can tell was written with expert craft. And yet it's still approachable. It held my attention better than any non-Twain short story collection I'd read before.
My one point of lingering dissatisfaction is with the romantic relationships the author presents as ideal. I'm a conservative fellow, and so I can't give full marks to a work in which marriage is presented in an exclusively negative light, while some other relationships are treated as ideals.
It's a beautiful collection, functioning better as a whole than any individual story would on its own. Highly recommended.
The style drew me in. I'm not an expert in literature or anything, but this is the kind of work that you can tell was written with expert craft. And yet it's still approachable. It held my attention better than any non-Twain short story collection I'd read before.
My one point of lingering dissatisfaction is with the romantic relationships the author presents as ideal. I'm a conservative fellow, and so I can't give full marks to a work in which marriage is presented in an exclusively negative light, while some other relationships are treated as ideals.
It's a beautiful collection, functioning better as a whole than any individual story would on its own. Highly recommended.
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