Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
literally my all-time favourite book. i happened to pick it up at a book sale, and i couldn't put it down again. i loved it so much, that when i was halfway across the world in america, i bought a first edition copy of this book.
the stories are so well-written, the voices in each so unique, and yet so perfectly in harmony. the writing is masterful, pulling you along with its pace. faster when it wants to be, and when it's slower it feels like those scenic shots in films where nothing is really happening, but it tells you so much about everyone.
i've read it multiple times. HONESTLY EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ IT.
the stories are so well-written, the voices in each so unique, and yet so perfectly in harmony. the writing is masterful, pulling you along with its pace. faster when it wants to be, and when it's slower it feels like those scenic shots in films where nothing is really happening, but it tells you so much about everyone.
i've read it multiple times. HONESTLY EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ IT.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The book is a collection of short stories by Julie Orringer. I took a chance on a new author and I loved her work. The two that I really like are "When She is Old and I Am Famous" and "Note to Sixth-Grade Self." Along with "The Isabel Fish" and "The Smoothest Way Is Full of Stones," this book is the perfect sample of lives of people you probably know or meet in the future.
Short stories. I really loved it. Some were super-crazy but most were at least entertaining.
I would like to write a more fleshed out review, but I'm so mentally exhausted from work that I think I'll let the star rating do the talking. As is the case with most short story books, there were some stories I enjoyed more than others, but overall, I enjoyed the compilation of stories.
This is the best collection of short stories I’ve read in a long time (maybe ever?)! Each story pulled me in quickly and I fell into it like each was its’ own world.
I’m both so so happy that I came across this collection by chance at my used bookstore and also confused why I didn’t know about her before ?!?! Because all of these stories are so so damn good and I can’t stop thinking about some of the scenes she creates and the sheer weight of them and also the craft?!? And also I really want to go to NOLA and visit Catholic Churches and experience Judaism bc those were major mainstays in the collection which made all the stories feel pinned down in the real! I’m just beside myself! I can’t recommend this collection enough!
I’m both so so happy that I came across this collection by chance at my used bookstore and also confused why I didn’t know about her before ?!?! Because all of these stories are so so damn good and I can’t stop thinking about some of the scenes she creates and the sheer weight of them and also the craft?!? And also I really want to go to NOLA and visit Catholic Churches and experience Judaism bc those were major mainstays in the collection which made all the stories feel pinned down in the real! I’m just beside myself! I can’t recommend this collection enough!
I read this book several years ago and one of the stories, "Pilgrims", has stayed in my head ever since. Would love to re-read.
I have heard others say it, and even caught myself: Kids are mean. We use the phrase in regards to the unkind acts children inflict on each other, but also as an excuse, as if there is nothing to be done, just as some will toss out boys will be boys without hearing the permission it grants our young men to behave without consequence. As a teacher, this disturbs me. And so most of Julie Orringer's short stories in How to Breathe Underwater disturbed me, too.
Each one is finely crafted around the cruelty of humans. I won't soften it by saying 'our basest instincts.' As often as children feel the direct effects of this cruelty, they are just as likely to be dishing it out. I can handle selfishness and vanity in characters, but the willingnesss to hurt others comes at a cost to this reader. Otherwise, I found Orringer's work spell-bounding. A collection of works can sometimes better reveal an author's go-to topics than a novel. Cancer, religion, and motherless-children, and what that missing piece can unlock in a young person's psyche, came back again and again.
"The Isabel Fish," from whence the title derives, was by far my favorite work. I tried with "Note to Sixth-Grade Self," but second person is just about the most tedious thing. I gave up two pages in. I also couldn't finish "Stations of the Cross" because it was the last piece, and I had been primed by "Pilgrims" to fear children left to their warped devises.
Overall, I'm glad to have finally picked this one up, though I don't regret skipping what I did. I'm all for literature as a means to explore the human condition, but on occasion, it can be too much, in life and in word.
Each one is finely crafted around the cruelty of humans. I won't soften it by saying 'our basest instincts.' As often as children feel the direct effects of this cruelty, they are just as likely to be dishing it out. I can handle selfishness and vanity in characters, but the willingnesss to hurt others comes at a cost to this reader. Otherwise, I found Orringer's work spell-bounding. A collection of works can sometimes better reveal an author's go-to topics than a novel. Cancer, religion, and motherless-children, and what that missing piece can unlock in a young person's psyche, came back again and again.
"The Isabel Fish," from whence the title derives, was by far my favorite work. I tried with "Note to Sixth-Grade Self," but second person is just about the most tedious thing. I gave up two pages in. I also couldn't finish "Stations of the Cross" because it was the last piece, and I had been primed by "Pilgrims" to fear children left to their warped devises.
Overall, I'm glad to have finally picked this one up, though I don't regret skipping what I did. I'm all for literature as a means to explore the human condition, but on occasion, it can be too much, in life and in word.
reflective
medium-paced
The Isabel Fish one is my favorite.