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jamesnpmarsh's review against another edition
5.0
Totally beautiful. Gorgeous, taut, memorable storytelling about ordinary life.
herbiehickmott's review against another edition
4.0
Worth reading for the story "People Like That Are The Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk".... which left me shaking & raw.
bookishgoblin's review against another edition
1.0
This book was for my masters course and really I should have gotten more than half way through it but I just can't stomach any more. The writing is fine, but why chose to write this?! Every story is just people sipping alcohol musing about their affair and whether or not they should have taken that chance when they were young but didn't but oh look their wife's having an affair and the woman they're having an affair with is having an affair with someone else oh the nihilism of it all. I hate literary short story collections, especially ones with alcohol and freaking dinner parties, please make it end.
librariandest's review against another edition
3.0
These are great stories, but I imagine I'd like them more if I were older. The humor, the settings, the characters, a lot of what was going on seemed dated to me. Beautiful writing, some great jokes, but not my favorite book of literary shorts ever.
lindseygwilson's review against another edition
medium-paced
3.5
A collection of short stories. Some resonated with me, others did not so much. The one that captured me the most was People Like That are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk.
mhkloster's review against another edition
4.0
If I could write I would want to write like Lorrie Moore.
torintorin's review against another edition
4.0
Good short stories. My least favorite was Peed Onk. My most favorite was the one about moving to a new house.
smderitis's review against another edition
3.0
Moore's writing is wonderful. She brings out such raw emotion in each story, and creates incredibly vivid and unique characters. This collection felt a little melodramatic overall, but the intense despair doesn't ultimately take away from the substance of the book.
sidneygolbitz's review against another edition
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
3.0
Lorrie Moore is good writer but none of her stories really spoke to me. There wasn’t mush difference between most of the female protagonists and I can only read so much about strained romantic relationships. She is a good character writer, but I feel like most the stories lacked a meaning.
keight's review against another edition
5.0
classic collection of short stories, I keenly felt while reading this how many stories I’ve read that have emulated the witty absurdity of Lorrie Moore. But while there may be a layer of quirkiness on top of her writing, not far underneath are more complex, melancholy themes: grief, loneliness, anxiety, illness. The last story “Wonderful Mother” is about a woman who is handed a friend’s baby at a barbecue, loses her balance, and drops the baby — a fatal accident. In her resulting pathological guilt, she marries a professor, who she seems at most ambivalent about, and then goes with him on an academic retreat in Italy. It may sound like a beautiful escape, but instead every night she struggles to make conversation with the other academics, who generally lose interest when they realize she is merely a spouse. Her attempts to maintain their interest get zanier as the nights progress. Read more on my booklog