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kylaoren's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
truly a connoisseur of both silliness and pathos....just a master of the short story tbh so thankful she has published soooo many anthologies i can't wait to read them all
arunendro's review against another edition
3.0
very bleak, very fragmented. i'm not sure that i am the right age to really appreciate this book. perhaps i will revisit later on.
mrconnorobrien's review against another edition
5.0
i read this book while i was backpacking through europe, the stories are very funny and also very depressing.
derekmoodyrutledge's review against another edition
5.0
What a collection of stories. Lorrie Moore is one of the best at the art of short story writing.
runehallow's review against another edition
5.0
Lorrie Moore is one of my favorite contemporary authors. I have a big collection of her short stories on order from Amazon, but I was glad to see this smaller, early collection hiding in the library (most places only carry Birds of America). Her writing is so poignant, incisive and witty, with such precise and startling figures of speech--I both love it and hate it at the same time, because I know I'll never achieve what she manages to in prose. Moore's gifts are luminous; that rare person who can make you laugh while you cry.
nssutton's review
5.0
hands down my favorite short story writer. didn't exactly have a favorite, as they all seemed to end too quickly. reading flannery o'conner recently however made me nervous, as i expected each of of moore's stories to have that ghastly ending and was so excited when it didn't turn out that way. listened to st. vincent's actor a lot while reading.
lrc52's review against another edition
5.0
it's been a while since i read a book as good as this one. the writing is ugly and beautiful and raw and real. the yearning these characters feel sears to the bone. i held my breath waiting for a hope--and it came, but only in tiny puffs.
thomasgoddard's review against another edition
4.0
I love Moore's stories. Without a doubt they hit hard. They're solid. Every sentence matters. Some of the stories don't hit me quite so hard. I still feel like each is a gift though.
Now, this is my unrefined assumption, maybe I'm wide of the mark; but her stories really seem like an insight into the feminine world. So it makes sense to me, but I don't share those same thoughts. I am still always struck by a sense of being an outsider. In the same way that Cusk reveals a lot of things that I don't worry about on a daily basis. I can remember reading Cusk and just thinking of that old Atwood quote... 'Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.'
I haven't met a male writer who manages to capture what it is to be a man the way that Moore captures what it is to be a woman. Or, more accurately, what I think she has done to capture the concerns women have. Because what I get from her work is that there are more variables for women to be mindful of. To juggle. To navigate. Besides, I think that any man writing a story wouldn't have the guts to be as honest about himself as that. Although, I am led to believe that Knausgård gets close.
Have you read any men that manage it? I'd really love to know.
But literature is fifty years behind other art forms and, as a result, I don't think that it's divorced itself yet from the clichés of masculinity and femininity. And as a result it still transmits over those frequencies. Maybe that will change. Maybe it already has, in genres I don't read.
Any thoughts on this?
But in the meantime, I'm glad that Moore has managed to unlock a little avenue toward empathy. I always come away from her stories feeling a little less flippant. And a little more aware of how I interact with women in my life. A little more mindful of not adding myself as another member of the myriad of morons they encounter on the daily.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐