Reviews

Birds of America: Stories by Lorrie Moore

libristella's review against another edition

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

3.0

cayceosborne's review against another edition

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4.0

All the stories here are good, and I doled them out over several weeks so they wouldn’t run together in my mind. For me, it was the last two stories that really dazzled. Neither was easy reading, and included the type of subject matter that can make me put a book down, but these stories wouldn’t let me. I was stunned into finishing them, and was left in awe when I did.

motifenjoyer's review against another edition

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emotional reflective

4.0

absalomabsalom's review against another edition

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4.0

so useful and active to read from someone that is so pleasurably texturally lit-up with her difference from me... With this precise and strange animal weirdness... Senses of femininity marriage and love, with what appears to be the strictures of such but filled with again her weird gray light of

So good, like a rich light cream. Many dog-eared pages of this book which i will keep in the book, physical, to my right on my bookcase, for me

kpaget's review against another edition

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2.0

Eh

hhorton's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny reflective slow-paced

3.0

graceliles's review against another edition

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3.0

her writing style is one of my favs but unfortunately just did not enjoy this collection 

pao_reynard's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

dkrane's review against another edition

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5.0

So many wonderful, painful stories of lonely people just missing connecting with one another. Affairs and deaths, passion projects and aimlessness, a whole lot of searching with few answers mixed in with some unexpectedly weird endings. Moore embraces uncertainty and unresolvedness with a lot of these stories which can be frustrating when you invest so deeply in her characters, but is probably truer to life than easy catharsis. A lot of it’s a downer, but there are enough sprinkles of hope and bursting-at-the-seams humanity to guide any reader through the sadness.

Favorite stories include the brilliant and harrowing “People Like That are the Only People Here” about a mother of a toddler with cancer, “Real Estate” and its story of an isolated woman in her marriage finding new life reclaiming a new house; the hard-won redemption of “Terrific Mother,” grappling with the horrific aftermath of an accidental death; the lonely heartbreak of a librarian in “Community Life”; and the touching story of a woman mourning her cat’s death in “Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens.”

zoeadrien's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0