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jlapsley's review against another edition
4.0
I feel like everything gets four stars lately - but I haven't read a short story anthology as gripping as this one in a while. It took the easiest routes to my heart: crime, variety, and a New Jersey backdrop.
rhyzkneez's review against another edition
3.0
A few really great short stories, and a few alright short stories. The best are at the beginning, and then it gradually lessened in quality for me. Overall, my favorite part was reading the descriptions of places in NJ I haven’t travelled to yet, and then checking them out on Google maps. Good way to discover new places in the state.
lilih's review against another edition
3.0
As the title says, short noir-ish stories set in New Jersey. Not bad, but a bit more literary than I was expecting.
laurenleyendolibros's review
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
The stories themselves are fairly mediocre, one or two stand out above the others (Jonathan Safran Foer’s Too Near Real and Jonathan Santlofer’s Lola – the latter was definitely my favourite). There were a few poems but they were unnecessary for me.
The best thing about the collection was probably JCO’s introduction. First, if you’re going to have a story collection about New Jersey, especially dark stories like these, who else is going to write the intro?* It would be like a NJ music anthology not mentioning Springsteen or Sinatra (they were both mentioned here by the way).
I must admit, I didn’t actually know the definition of noir (fatalism and moral ambiguity), it just made me think of femme fatales and black and white films. But JCO’s intro is so interesting and really makes you want to start reading the stories and, oddly, watch The Sopranos.
*I know she’s not actually from NJ, but there’s no writer I associate with more with the state!
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