A review by teejayniu
Country Hardball by Steve Weddle

3.0

I won this book in a Goodreads giveaways contest. It's pretty short. A collection of short stories that set the scene of small-town Arkansas. Having lived there for a year, I can definitely appreciate the nuances in the book. The problem is that none of the short stories really work independently on their own, but neither does the book work well as one cohesive story. It takes a long time to keep the various characters straight and figure out which ones matter to the overarching storyline. The ending, or lack thereof, was a letdown, as the book finally seemed to be heading somewhere good. All that said, the writing is crisp and the characters are pretty well fleshed out. I would be interested in seeing this expanded to a more complete novel.