Reviews - Liberation Day: Stories

897 reviews for:

Liberation Day: Stories

George Saunders

4.0 AVERAGE

murkydepths's review against another edition

5.0

dark funny hopeful inspiring mysterious sad fast-paced

sunshine915's review

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: N/A

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I do not read lots of short stories because I like to lose myself in a bigger story, but I am so glad my book club selected this collection. I could not read it fast because I had to sit with each story before moving on to the next one. For such a small book, it packed a huge punch. I would gladly read anything this author wrote or will write.

kyazumaa's review against another edition

4.5

challenging dark reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

cheesy_hobbit's review against another edition

4.0

For anyone familiar with Luis Valdez, the playwright and ally of the United Farm Workers’ strike and friend of Cesar Chavez, this collection of experimental realism stories will make you think of his disturbingly satirical play, “Los Vendidos”, which his theater company, El Teatro Campesino, produced while marching with the grape farm workers in the late 1970’s.

The short stories all center around characters struggling for liberty, but in a dark, Black Mirror type of way (see Netflix series of same name). There are struggles for individual freedom, sometimes characters struggling for literal physical autonomy, and these struggles are also woven into a larger backdrop of an existential struggle for liberty and freedom against a cascading unnamed, unspoken, but very present force of conformity for conformity’s sake.

Doubtless, many readers will find the stories confusing to follow, as, if I’m speaking correctly, there is no direct dialogue anywhere in these stories. Some are told in the first person, some in the second, and some in the third. But no matter what the perspective, the lack of direct dialogue makes the stories seem all to exist over each other, but it also feels like each story is walking back over itself, with no guiding points or set direction, leaving the reader feeling directionless, hopeless, and desperate to find a foothold to help them make sense of everything.

And I think Saunders is intentional about this. These stories are clearly a reflection, if not directly a commentary, on the feeling that may be prevalent in society of having freedom, but not feeling particularly autonomous. These are eerie stories with confusing, sometimes unlikeable characters, but there is a captivating dread released when the stories are read that clamps onto the reader and forces them underwater, gasping for air, gasping for a sense of comfort.

But there is no comfort to be found in these stories. Saunders wants us to feel drowned in the overwhelming waves of utter meaninglessness of the characters in spite of their desperate hope for better presents and better futures.

This collection of stories would be suitable for a college course on human identity, sociology, and liberty.