Scan barcode
jessicakelly339's review against another edition
2.0
The short stories are a little uncomfortable and depressing yet I still felt compelled to keep reading. Usually a good sign.
dllh's review against another edition
4.0
I first read Angel's "Snuff" in One Story and knew that I wanted to read more of her work. The stories in this collection run in a similar vein and are very well done. She writes from the perspective of teen boys pretty convincingly, and the stories she tells resonate with a lot of the stories that I wish I could get properly out of my own head and onto paper (so that reading Angel makes me think "what's the point? she's already done it, and better than I could ever hope to"). I'll definitely be reading more by Angel.
juliamascioli's review against another edition
4.0
It is a testament to the power of Jodi Angel's writing that I found myself wholly engaged in these stories about teenage boys, one of my least favorite demographics.
sinnylong's review against another edition
5.0
These rough and real stories tell it like it is. Angel is a master of the short form. You won't be able to put this collection down until you've savored every last sentence.
bashbashbashbash's review
4.0
I came to Jodi Angel's short stories through the little excerpt of A Good Deuce posted on Electric Literature. I read and it and went back to read it again a few times, and then the whole story. It was that first breathless paragraph that reeled me in, full of the texture of a life that isn't mine, but maybe of a friend, or that guy I met on vacation. It was California, but not the California people think about when they say the name of the state. It was my California, a state whose Northern regions smell like "star thistle and baked red dirt."
But it wasn't just that – I felt like I knew these guys in the stories. Okay, maybe not the particular boys, but boys not unlike them. Boys they would have gone to school with all over Northern California. The girls, too, had a familiar combination of vulnerability and sharp edges that made them feel like true portraits, drawn from life.
All the stories were good, and of course I had my favourites: Catch the Grey Dog, The Diving Reflex, and Field Dressing. That last one I absolutely loved, although I think partly for personal reasons (the uncle in the story wasn't so unlike a combination of a couple of uncles I had, who were good men – though more together than the man in the story). There was hunting and there was a tough woman who knew all about survival and tough choices. Everything about this story hit me in just the right spot. Maybe there's the fact too that the tension in the story breaks through the surface instead of bubbling underneath all the while. There were a few times I wanted other stories in the collection to do that – to go there, wherever there might be. Like some other people here, I also noticed that sometimes the stories shared a few more similarities (particularly in voice) than I would like in a collection. But life isn't all about what I would like all the time, is it.
There are these little observations that I swear I've never seen someone make on the page before, that are so vivid:
"At first I felt unsure about where I was, the strange smell of the pillow under my head and the heavy bulk of blanket did not belong to me." (Catch the Grey Dog)
That said, Jodi Angel writes these paragraphs that raise goosebumps on my arms (really!):
"I would be sixteen before fall, maybe get my driver's license, start the high school year that counted for college, and probably be a better swimmer to take on crossing the slough by next summer. Across the water beyond the far shore was the freeway, and I could see the steady roll of lights and hear the drone of trucks shifting gears they they prepared to make the long turn toward north and the distant edge of the state beyond." (The Diving Reflex)
"I was on my second bag of Doritos and my lips were stained emergency orange when my best friend, Phillip, said he knew a bar in Hallelujah Junction that didn’t card, and maybe we should go there. We had been sitting in my living room for eighteen or nineteen hours watching Robert Redford movies, where Redford had gone from square-jawed, muscled, and rugged to looking like a blanched piece of beef jerky, and we had watched it go from dark to light to dark again through the break in the curtains. The coroner had wheeled my mother out all those hours ago and my grandma Hannah had stalked down the sidewalk with her fists closed and locked at her side, insisting that a dead body had every right to stay in the house for as long as the family wanted it there. My mother was no longer my mother; she had become Anna Schroeder, the deceased, and my grandma Hannah had been on the phone trying to track my father down. The best we had was a number for the pay phone at the Deville Motel, and only one of two things happened when you dialed that number—either it rang and rang into lonely nothing or someone answered and asked if this was Joey and hung up when the answer was no. My grandma called the number twenty-two times, and the only thing that changed was the quality of the light, and my mother went out, and Phillip came in, and my sister, Christy, packed her things so she could go, and I did not." (A Good Deuce)
But it wasn't just that – I felt like I knew these guys in the stories. Okay, maybe not the particular boys, but boys not unlike them. Boys they would have gone to school with all over Northern California. The girls, too, had a familiar combination of vulnerability and sharp edges that made them feel like true portraits, drawn from life.
All the stories were good, and of course I had my favourites: Catch the Grey Dog, The Diving Reflex, and Field Dressing. That last one I absolutely loved, although I think partly for personal reasons (the uncle in the story wasn't so unlike a combination of a couple of uncles I had, who were good men – though more together than the man in the story). There was hunting and there was a tough woman who knew all about survival and tough choices. Everything about this story hit me in just the right spot. Maybe there's the fact too that the tension in the story breaks through the surface instead of bubbling underneath all the while. There were a few times I wanted other stories in the collection to do that – to go there, wherever there might be. Like some other people here, I also noticed that sometimes the stories shared a few more similarities (particularly in voice) than I would like in a collection. But life isn't all about what I would like all the time, is it.
There are these little observations that I swear I've never seen someone make on the page before, that are so vivid:
"At first I felt unsure about where I was, the strange smell of the pillow under my head and the heavy bulk of blanket did not belong to me." (Catch the Grey Dog)
That said, Jodi Angel writes these paragraphs that raise goosebumps on my arms (really!):
"I would be sixteen before fall, maybe get my driver's license, start the high school year that counted for college, and probably be a better swimmer to take on crossing the slough by next summer. Across the water beyond the far shore was the freeway, and I could see the steady roll of lights and hear the drone of trucks shifting gears they they prepared to make the long turn toward north and the distant edge of the state beyond." (The Diving Reflex)
"I was on my second bag of Doritos and my lips were stained emergency orange when my best friend, Phillip, said he knew a bar in Hallelujah Junction that didn’t card, and maybe we should go there. We had been sitting in my living room for eighteen or nineteen hours watching Robert Redford movies, where Redford had gone from square-jawed, muscled, and rugged to looking like a blanched piece of beef jerky, and we had watched it go from dark to light to dark again through the break in the curtains. The coroner had wheeled my mother out all those hours ago and my grandma Hannah had stalked down the sidewalk with her fists closed and locked at her side, insisting that a dead body had every right to stay in the house for as long as the family wanted it there. My mother was no longer my mother; she had become Anna Schroeder, the deceased, and my grandma Hannah had been on the phone trying to track my father down. The best we had was a number for the pay phone at the Deville Motel, and only one of two things happened when you dialed that number—either it rang and rang into lonely nothing or someone answered and asked if this was Joey and hung up when the answer was no. My grandma called the number twenty-two times, and the only thing that changed was the quality of the light, and my mother went out, and Phillip came in, and my sister, Christy, packed her things so she could go, and I did not." (A Good Deuce)
More...