Reviews

The Best Short Stories 2023: The O. Henry Prize Winners by Lauren Groff, Jenny Minton Quigley

garleighc's review

challenging emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.5

efnirah's review

dark emotional fast-paced

3.5

taliatalksbooks's review

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.5

Spent the beginning of this year reading The Best Short Stories 2023, edited by Lauren Groff. This collection includes authors Ling Ma, Catherine Lacey, Jonas Eika (translated by Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg), Gabriel Smith, Jamil Jan Kochai, Lisa Taddeo, Rachel B. Glaser, Naomi Shuyama-Gómez, Rodrigo Blanco Calderón (translated by Thomas Bunstead), Shelby Kinney-Lang, Jacob M’hango, ‘Pemi Aguda, Cristina Rivera Garza (translated by Francisca Gonzàlez-Arias), Grey Wolfe LaJoie, Kristin Valdez Quade, Arinze Ifeakandu, David Ryan, K-Ming Chang, Kathleen Alcott, and Eamon McGinness. These stories were all well written, but not all of them were as compelling as I expected. I found many of them to have some of the same themes, especially in the realm of realistic fiction. I enjoyed the collection, but do wish that there was more diversity in the kinds of stories included. I was really excited to see some translated pieces in here, and I think that at least helped increase the diverse elements slightly. A few of my standout pieces from this collection were “Ira & The Whale”, “Xífù” and “The Blackhills”. If you’re a fan of realistic fiction, and want to see some of the best recent publications, I would definitely check out these award winning short stories.

cleocat's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.25

jezs's review

medium-paced

3.0

horourke's review

really exceptional short story collection. even the stories I didn’t like I kinda liked 

eileen_critchley's review

dark emotional funny tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

3.5

Lauren Goff's intro made me excited to dig into this book; I loved how she feels about reading short stories, why we read them, and what good ones do for us.

Many of these stories I really enjoyed, and some fell short for me, but that's the nature of these anthologies. My personal favorites were: Office Hours, The Haunting of Hajji Hotak, Ira & the Whale, The Commander's Teeth, The Locksmith, After Hours at the Acacia Park Pool, Elision, Xífù, and The Blackhills. I always appreciate in these collections when they include the authors' thoughts on their stories at the end.

This isn't one I read consistently every year but I may try to pick it up for 2024 as well.

{library, paperback}

_maddsharks_'s review

4.0

I love these collections. This year did not hit me as hard as the 2022 collection, but there were some real standouts- especially the first few stories. 

graceyourface's review

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

apathyinc's review

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

As with all short story collections, you'll find that some stick to your ribs better than others. But every story included deserved to be selected, and they are a strange, haunting collection. Each is a wonderful read, and they work together wonderfully. 

The one thing i did find strange is that there seemed to be a very distinct motif in the chosen short stories throughout most of the collection, so consistent that i found myself seeking the motif in stories where it wasn't present. I'm not sure if this was intentional, to highlight those stories, or if it was just because they were too good to exclude (and i could definitely make that argument), but the created and unfulfilled expectation tended to be a bit of a red herring or a distraction in a few otherwise fantastic entries. Maybe i would've found it less noticeable if the order of stories had been rearranged, so that i wouldn't have been expecting the motif in every story by the time i got to the stories where it was absent. But this is a small thing, as thematically the collection is still quite coherent