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morninglightmama's review against another edition
4.0
If you're looking for sunshine and joy, this is not the collection of short stories for you. But, if you're wanting a reading experience with depth, these eight tales will wow, all linked by common themes of disenchantment, loss, and a depth of human emotions. While there is no abundance of joy in this collection, the beauty here is to be found in the sorrow and the complexities of each tale. Though the stories are short, they are to be savored. Too often, I found myself rushing through, propelled by the emotion, but I forced myself to go back and truly feel each sentence, for Spatz is at the top of his craft here, and he is a master with words. Pick this up for a deeply affecting read, a small package with a big impact.
weweresotired's review against another edition
3.0
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Author Gregory Spatz has assembled a collection of dense, intricate short stories in Half as Happy. While your average short story just gives you a sketch of who the characters are, or maybe feels like it could be part of a large work, Spatz's stories feel fully realized. His writing style is rich with detail and flows in an almost stream-of-consciousness sort of way, which can get a bit overwhelming at times, but which serves the narrative voice of the story very welll.
While some of the characters aren't even given names, you still feel like you wind up knowing them, warts and all. Even when you get little backstory on the characters, you feel like you know what makes them tick -- at least, as well as the characters themselves know, which oftentimes isn't that well. The characters are not often ones who have a great deal of self awareness, and if they do, that doesn't mean they understand the other people in their lives any better.
The people Spatz writes about are not exactly people in peak condition. They are dysfunctional, desperate, delusional. They are cheaters and liars, they are seeing their relationships crumble before their eyes. They are grief-stricken or ill or on the cusp of divorcing. Not one story focuses on people who really have their act together. A number of the stories felt far too close to home for me sometimes: the lonely soon-to-be ex-spouses, each looking on at the other post-break-up with a degree of desire for the life the other now has; the young couple moving into a new home to try to recapture a connection that they've lost. The characters may be lost and dysfunctional, but they are very, deeply human.
All of the stories save one ("The Bowmaker's Cats") are set in a realistic, fairly straight-forward contemporary world. "The Bowmaker's Cats" has a touch of magical realism about it as you find yourself wonder what, exactly, happened, what does it all mean, when you get to the end. The rest of the stories show you snippets of lives, relationships gone wrong, things taken too far. It's a fascinating look at less-than-perfect people, many of whom you still find yourself rooting for anyway.
Enter the Rafflecopter below for a chance to win Half as Happy to experience Spatz's detailed, sometimes disorienting, worlds for yourself. Open to anyone who can receive mail at an address in the US. Due to some sexual situations in the book, please enter only if you are 17 or older.
Author Gregory Spatz has assembled a collection of dense, intricate short stories in Half as Happy. While your average short story just gives you a sketch of who the characters are, or maybe feels like it could be part of a large work, Spatz's stories feel fully realized. His writing style is rich with detail and flows in an almost stream-of-consciousness sort of way, which can get a bit overwhelming at times, but which serves the narrative voice of the story very welll.
While some of the characters aren't even given names, you still feel like you wind up knowing them, warts and all. Even when you get little backstory on the characters, you feel like you know what makes them tick -- at least, as well as the characters themselves know, which oftentimes isn't that well. The characters are not often ones who have a great deal of self awareness, and if they do, that doesn't mean they understand the other people in their lives any better.
The people Spatz writes about are not exactly people in peak condition. They are dysfunctional, desperate, delusional. They are cheaters and liars, they are seeing their relationships crumble before their eyes. They are grief-stricken or ill or on the cusp of divorcing. Not one story focuses on people who really have their act together. A number of the stories felt far too close to home for me sometimes: the lonely soon-to-be ex-spouses, each looking on at the other post-break-up with a degree of desire for the life the other now has; the young couple moving into a new home to try to recapture a connection that they've lost. The characters may be lost and dysfunctional, but they are very, deeply human.
All of the stories save one ("The Bowmaker's Cats") are set in a realistic, fairly straight-forward contemporary world. "The Bowmaker's Cats" has a touch of magical realism about it as you find yourself wonder what, exactly, happened, what does it all mean, when you get to the end. The rest of the stories show you snippets of lives, relationships gone wrong, things taken too far. It's a fascinating look at less-than-perfect people, many of whom you still find yourself rooting for anyway.
Enter the Rafflecopter below for a chance to win Half as Happy to experience Spatz's detailed, sometimes disorienting, worlds for yourself. Open to anyone who can receive mail at an address in the US. Due to some sexual situations in the book, please enter only if you are 17 or older.
lukeleinberger's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
glorifiedloveletters's review against another edition
4.0
You know a book is good if you only stop reading so that you can tell the author, at 1 AM via Facebook, how much you are enjoying it. The evening I began reading it, I'd plans to watch Doctor Who, which, if you know me, is serious business. I thought I would read a little, then turn on the TV. No, I kept reading. Let it be known: Gregory Spatz's new story collection, Half as Happy, is a wonderfully gratifying little book.
This is the passage, from the story “Happy For You,” that had me thinking, Jesus, this guy is good at opening paragraphs, and that's when I jumped online to tell him so:
(My full review can be found at Glorified Love Letters.)
This is the passage, from the story “Happy For You,” that had me thinking, Jesus, this guy is good at opening paragraphs, and that's when I jumped online to tell him so:
For the moment, she is asleep — an ethereal gray sleep, something like the color of brain matter or of wet cement at dawn, or of the light seeping across her ceiling. A window fan at the foot of her bed whisks air into the room — wet, early spring air — furls and unfurls it around her, keeping her aloft in her dreams.[…]The phone rings, jerking her from this gray ethereality, aches in her joints and muscles all previously dissolved out of reason magically reasserting themselves.
(My full review can be found at Glorified Love Letters.)
garleighc's review
3.0
I feel like I didn't always understand as much as I should have about the stories, but I really liked these. I liked how they all focused on a sort of duality, and how they all had to do with finding and losing things. I especially liked Half As Happy and String, but all the stories were pretty good. Not sure if I would read anything else by this author but this was a nice little collection.