Reviews

Refresh, Refresh by Benjamin Percy

m_spies's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

aahlvers's review

2.0

This is another one of those stories that I can appreciate for it's technical skill but didn't really enjoy reading. The stories were tied together by blood. Blood from hunting, from murder, from miscarriage. Well, you get the point. I always read with an eye toward recommendation because that is, after all, my job. I just couldn't figure out who I could give this to and say, read this, you will love it.

That being said, this is an excellent short story author and I am sure that we will be seeing more of his work in the future.

ionsquareatkreuzberg's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

krystlocity's review against another edition

3.0

I admire what this book is trying to touch on, but I felt like it moved too fast, only gave glimpses into things that needed more exploration. It's depressing and disheartening, and that comes through loud and clear. Maybe that's the point. It's ugly, and leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth, that's for sure. And again, maybe that's not criticism, maybe that's the point. For a fast run through of subject matter, it follows teenage boys who's father's are away in active Marine duty, and everything that means for them and their families. It shows more than tells, but I think leaves a little too much vagueness in the process. I'd have liked more personal thoughts instead of just a bird's eye view of actions, I think. But still...things are all pretty clear to deduce so it's not needed, but I feel like with more I could've been more attached to the characters instead of just feeling depressed by them.

wigstown's review

3.0

Percy is a powerful writer, and this can't be the only book I read of his. The dark woods of a dark Oregon are the backdrop for all of these stories. The title story is a great fable about what happens to boys when we send their fathers off to war. They turn into the troubled, angry young men who populate Percy's other stories. I think I got a little tired of the blood, always the blood, "spilling through in a continuous stream, like blood pumped from a ragged heart" (from The Faulty Builder).

mattdube's review

4.0

This is a lot better than I thought it would be, since I think so much fiction is already obsessed with masculinity and I generally think, well, that as a subject it's kind of a reflexive dead end.

But this book, as much as the big M is its subject, varies the formula some by introducing some hardcore genre elements, like in the story "Fallout," which is the first post-apocalyptic story in the midst of a literary collection I can recall, and some stories that are, well, just nasty. "Whisper" is a standout for me, both for being nasty (the internal portrait of an unrepentant rapist) and for the writing, which in this story reaches for some figurative language and thrilling linguistic turns the other stories (mostly) eschew. It's really good.

Lots of the other stories are also pretty dynamite, because Percy seems authoritative on things I do care about but feel really isolated from-- a lot on working class lives, more on returning Gulf vets than I've read, two subjects I wish I understood well enough to write about, so I really appreciated reading about them. Some stories don't totally work-- "The Woods" and "The Faulty Builder" both kind of crap out to me, and the last story in the book, "When the Bear Came," has a lot of promise but in the end doesn't quite deliver.

But still, this is a really strong collection, one I liked sort of in spite of myself and my usual taste for something less conventional and more pointedly literary. A book with lots of charm mixed in amidst some serious craft.

chriskoppenhaver's review against another edition

4.0

War is destructive and leaves ruins in its wake. This is a story of war making ruins of the lives of the families that soldiers have left behind as those families struggle to deal with the emptiness--both practical (empty bank accounts) and emotional (the constant, gnawing anxiety)--of their absences. It focuses specifically on three teen boys in a small town in rural Oregon who do their best to cope and fill the voids, but find themselves making bad decisions as often as not. Boys will be boys is problematic enough, but boys trying to be men before they are ready is potentially disastrous. Yet I couldn't help but feel for them--and with them--even as I cringed. Effective, poignant storytelling.

donnathededd's review against another edition

4.0

Some heavy stuff in here. But a relatively unsatisfying ending.

edh's review against another edition

4.0

When your whole world has been reduced to shades of gray, the blooming ruby splashes of blood from your homemade fight club really stand out. A group of teen boys suffer the myriad pains of their fathers' deployment, watching their mothers work extra shifts at local factories and other hardships mount. The boys' world has been shifted by the loss of their childhood and innocence, realizing that every time they click "refresh" on their web browsers the growing silence could mean the worst has happened. Based on the short story by Benjamin Percy, this is an important re-telling of deployment's various impacts on youth.

hedda_leser's review against another edition

emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.25

De er jo ganske rasshøl hele veien men på en måte at det er meningen med historien.