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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
If you haven't read Julie Orringer -- you must right away. I am not normally a short-story person but Julie Orringer may have changed my mind. She has an amazing ability to tell a rich, vivid stories in just a few pages. Wonderful.
challenging
dark
slow-paced
Gripping and unique stories that pull you in within the first few sentences. I loved reading all of the stories, except for maybe the last one. All of the main characters were very relatable and fascinating to read about. Good quick read.
Really awesome, fast-paced set of short stories.
Beautiful writing and the stories cut straight to the heart
Short stories like this collection make me wish I could be as talented of a writer. I loved this collection, devoured it in one evening and I can't get some of the stories out of my mind. The author tells tales from the innocent point of view of a child and yet somehow is able to weave extreme tragedy and drama into each, leaving the reader breathless at page end. I highly recommend, but not a light read.
Compelling and well written short story collect. Well worth the read.
These stories appear subtle at the start, but become sharp, and biting by the end. Every story is beautifully written, engaging, and surprising in its ability to blur the boundaries between material reality and deeply rooted fears and anxieties, particularly where children's behaviors and psyches are concerned. This is a terrific collection that will haunt you and provoke you to question your prior notions of innocence and the existence of the human conscience.
I rarely read books of short stories and I have liked only a few that I've read. There's something interesting and different about this collection that drew me in instantly. I liked that the voice in each story is a young woman, which created a thread that tied the seemingly unrelated stories together. I also liked that each story was left with a perfect amount unanswered. I was curious to know more about each story, but somehow felt that the girls would somehow make it through their remaining struggle in the end.
***NO SPOILERS***
How to Breathe Underwater or, Feeling Like a Fish Out of Water. That’s what Julie Orringer has done most successfully in this collection of nine pensive short stories that concern girls and young women--captured what it feels like to be out of one’s comfort zone. In one story, a girl feels awkward in an unfamiliar family’s home during an unconventional Thanksgiving. In another, an insecure young woman feels constant discomfort in the presence of her model cousin. In yet another, a school girl is reminded daily of just how much she doesn’t fit in with the mean-girl clique. Orringer cut to the quick well--and therein lies one of the collection’s problems; the stories view the world through too cynical a lens. This author overdid it. The end of one story sums this up. Just when it seems a protagonist’s crush is finally, surely going to bring some light into her life, he doesn’t. Orringer ties it up by stating all will stay the same for this poor miserable main character. On the one hand, this kind of harsh realism is bold and takes courage to depict, but on the other, it’s unsatisfying for the reader. That’s just the fact of the matter, and authors should be aware of it. If they’re to be as strong as they can be, even the saddest stories need at least a tiny flicker of hope.
Orringer has much experience with the short story format; prior to How to Breathe Underwater, she was published in several literary journals, such as Ploughshares, The Paris Review, and The Yale Review, so it’s ironic that one of her bigger problems was that she was too ambitious with each story. She attempted to explore everything from drug abuse to teenage sexual desire to child psychopathy. In the first story alone she tackled three themes that are too emotionally complex to succeed within the confines of the short story format. Disappointingly, nothing in this collection is fully realized, and though her effort to do so is apparent, Orringer didn’t really say anything of tremendous substance about the human condition. These stories are too cursory an examination to hold much, if any, great significance, but she did want very badly for them to be deeply significant.
Orringer needed help wrapping it all up. Many of these stories conclude poorly or lack resolutions. This is not the same as up-to-interpretation endings; these are incomplete, as if she thought a simple period at the end was an acceptable finale. “Care” is a prime example. The format doesn’t quite work in “Note to Sixth Grade Self,” and the point-of-view in “What We Save” is clunky to the point of distraction. This story is one that, like all the others, is narrated by a young female, but “What We Save” needs to be narrated by the mother. Because she wanted it for her collection about girls and young women, though, Orringer forced it.
Rounding out the collection is “Stations of the Cross.” Orringer was enthusiastic about symbolism, and it’s heavy-handed in some stories but is egregiously heavy-handed here. This story also contains a factual error regarding the sacrament of Holy Communion that will be glaring to Catholic readers.
Some of these short stories end worse than others, and it’s odd that Orringer chose “Stations of the Cross,” one of the most disturbing, as the collection’s swan song. It was a bad move. All it does is draw attention to the overall despondency of the collection. If a few tears are shed by the end, it’s not because How to Breathe Underwater stirred the soul but rather, induced depression.
Final verdict: Fans of coming-of-age stories will be attracted to How to Breathe Underwater but should look elsewhere for stories that genuinely satisfy.
How to Breathe Underwater or, Feeling Like a Fish Out of Water. That’s what Julie Orringer has done most successfully in this collection of nine pensive short stories that concern girls and young women--captured what it feels like to be out of one’s comfort zone. In one story, a girl feels awkward in an unfamiliar family’s home during an unconventional Thanksgiving. In another, an insecure young woman feels constant discomfort in the presence of her model cousin. In yet another, a school girl is reminded daily of just how much she doesn’t fit in with the mean-girl clique. Orringer cut to the quick well--and therein lies one of the collection’s problems; the stories view the world through too cynical a lens. This author overdid it. The end of one story sums this up. Just when it seems a protagonist’s crush is finally, surely going to bring some light into her life, he doesn’t. Orringer ties it up by stating all will stay the same for this poor miserable main character. On the one hand, this kind of harsh realism is bold and takes courage to depict, but on the other, it’s unsatisfying for the reader. That’s just the fact of the matter, and authors should be aware of it. If they’re to be as strong as they can be, even the saddest stories need at least a tiny flicker of hope.
Orringer has much experience with the short story format; prior to How to Breathe Underwater, she was published in several literary journals, such as Ploughshares, The Paris Review, and The Yale Review, so it’s ironic that one of her bigger problems was that she was too ambitious with each story. She attempted to explore everything from drug abuse to teenage sexual desire to child psychopathy. In the first story alone she tackled three themes that are too emotionally complex to succeed within the confines of the short story format. Disappointingly, nothing in this collection is fully realized, and though her effort to do so is apparent, Orringer didn’t really say anything of tremendous substance about the human condition. These stories are too cursory an examination to hold much, if any, great significance, but she did want very badly for them to be deeply significant.
Orringer needed help wrapping it all up. Many of these stories conclude poorly or lack resolutions. This is not the same as up-to-interpretation endings; these are incomplete, as if she thought a simple period at the end was an acceptable finale. “Care” is a prime example. The format doesn’t quite work in “Note to Sixth Grade Self,” and the point-of-view in “What We Save” is clunky to the point of distraction. This story is one that, like all the others, is narrated by a young female, but “What We Save” needs to be narrated by the mother. Because she wanted it for her collection about girls and young women, though, Orringer forced it.
Rounding out the collection is “Stations of the Cross.” Orringer was enthusiastic about symbolism, and it’s heavy-handed in some stories but is egregiously heavy-handed here. This story also contains a factual error regarding the sacrament of Holy Communion that will be glaring to Catholic readers.
Some of these short stories end worse than others, and it’s odd that Orringer chose “Stations of the Cross,” one of the most disturbing, as the collection’s swan song. It was a bad move. All it does is draw attention to the overall despondency of the collection. If a few tears are shed by the end, it’s not because How to Breathe Underwater stirred the soul but rather, induced depression.
Final verdict: Fans of coming-of-age stories will be attracted to How to Breathe Underwater but should look elsewhere for stories that genuinely satisfy.