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samizimecki's review
3.0
I won this book in a GoodReads Giveaway.
Cars is a collection of short stories, some using experiences from the author's real life, others made from tweaking stories he has been told about other people's lives, and I'm sure some parts are just made up from his imagination. If you were curious about any of the stories, he explains where he received his inspiration for each story at the end of the book.
I found the first couple of stories really hard to follow in the beginning, probably because all of the stories are roughly 15 pages long and written in first person. For me, the length of the chapters didn't really allow me to connect with the characters I was reading about, plus since each story was so different from the others, I really struggled following some of them. A few of the stories had a surplus of characters which led to me having to reread certain pages to figure out who was who, or at some points, who was even talking.
This was not a total dealbreaker though, since Kuhlken wrote characters that were pretty... damaged. They were not heroes or even decent people, and at times were a bit frustrating, but they were original, I'll give him that. In fact, my favorite story of the "Random Stories" section of this book, "The Light," focuses on how, in an attempt to impress a girl, two boys "surrender" themselves to God. That was one of the shorter stories in the book, but it was one that I really enjoyed and though I thought that a few of the ending lines for most of these stories were trying a bit too hard to give a final punch to the readers, I found the one for this one worked.
The next section is about an actual person (I believe) and honestly, towards the end there was a part that made me a bit sad, but this whole part I found a bit confusing and not as enjoyable as the following section.
The Hickey Family section was probably the strongest of this book (which makes sense since Tom Hickey is one of his main characters in his other books) and I found that it helped that he switched to third person for these chapters. Though again, each chapter was independent from the other, at least we were able to start recognizing some of the characters from the previous chapters. This did lead to some confusion on my part since one of the characters from one chapter seemed to be with one girl, but in the next chapter was engaged to a completely different woman. At least they gave some more back story as to how all these characters connected and I found these to be pretty enjoyable.
In the final section of the book, it focused on a character named Otis, and the writing, yet again, switched back to first person. Otis is another one of Kuhlken's flawed characters and though I enjoyed the relationship the main character and his grandma shared, I would have to disagree with the last lines of the book. "Otis is more than a good man. He's a great story too."
All in all, I think Cars is a good example of Ken Kuhlken's writing ability. He is not afraid to write about unlikable characters and the plots of the short stories all had range. I think what hurt this book was that this was a collection of short stories, and with them all mostly written in first person and then being so independent of each other, there were too many characters to keep track of and it was hard to lose yourself in it. Had all the stories be written in third person, that might have increased my enjoyment of this book, as his section written in third person was the strongest of the book, in my opinion. Kuhlken has obvious talent, and I think that this collection has encouraged me that it is worth looking into some of his actual novels.
Cars is a collection of short stories, some using experiences from the author's real life, others made from tweaking stories he has been told about other people's lives, and I'm sure some parts are just made up from his imagination. If you were curious about any of the stories, he explains where he received his inspiration for each story at the end of the book.
I found the first couple of stories really hard to follow in the beginning, probably because all of the stories are roughly 15 pages long and written in first person. For me, the length of the chapters didn't really allow me to connect with the characters I was reading about, plus since each story was so different from the others, I really struggled following some of them. A few of the stories had a surplus of characters which led to me having to reread certain pages to figure out who was who, or at some points, who was even talking.
This was not a total dealbreaker though, since Kuhlken wrote characters that were pretty... damaged. They were not heroes or even decent people, and at times were a bit frustrating, but they were original, I'll give him that. In fact, my favorite story of the "Random Stories" section of this book, "The Light," focuses on how, in an attempt to impress a girl, two boys "surrender" themselves to God. That was one of the shorter stories in the book, but it was one that I really enjoyed and though I thought that a few of the ending lines for most of these stories were trying a bit too hard to give a final punch to the readers, I found the one for this one worked.
The next section is about an actual person (I believe) and honestly, towards the end there was a part that made me a bit sad, but this whole part I found a bit confusing and not as enjoyable as the following section.
The Hickey Family section was probably the strongest of this book (which makes sense since Tom Hickey is one of his main characters in his other books) and I found that it helped that he switched to third person for these chapters. Though again, each chapter was independent from the other, at least we were able to start recognizing some of the characters from the previous chapters. This did lead to some confusion on my part since one of the characters from one chapter seemed to be with one girl, but in the next chapter was engaged to a completely different woman. At least they gave some more back story as to how all these characters connected and I found these to be pretty enjoyable.
In the final section of the book, it focused on a character named Otis, and the writing, yet again, switched back to first person. Otis is another one of Kuhlken's flawed characters and though I enjoyed the relationship the main character and his grandma shared, I would have to disagree with the last lines of the book. "Otis is more than a good man. He's a great story too."
All in all, I think Cars is a good example of Ken Kuhlken's writing ability. He is not afraid to write about unlikable characters and the plots of the short stories all had range. I think what hurt this book was that this was a collection of short stories, and with them all mostly written in first person and then being so independent of each other, there were too many characters to keep track of and it was hard to lose yourself in it. Had all the stories be written in third person, that might have increased my enjoyment of this book, as his section written in third person was the strongest of the book, in my opinion. Kuhlken has obvious talent, and I think that this collection has encouraged me that it is worth looking into some of his actual novels.
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