Reviews with content warning for Adult/minor relationship - Everybody Dies Famous in a Small Town

'𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯'𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦,' 𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘶𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨-𝘭𝘰𝘵 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳. '𝘠𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴.'

Meet the teenagers who live in small towns, separated by distance, but whose stories are woven together in the most unexpected ways. Through the spread of a wildfire, or the priest who has moved from state to state, or by the hunt for a missing child.

Short story collections are a rare outing for me, but I quickly became wrapped up in these small town stories. I'm not going to lie, I bought this book mainly because the cover reminded of Edward Hopper's Nighthawks painting, and I just bloody love a small town setting.

I'm gutted I had to read this one around working, I think the best way to experience this book would be in one sitting, because all of these stories are subtlety interconnected. And even though towards the end I loved picking up on all the little links, I bet there were so many buried in the text that I didn't pick up on, because I had responsibilities so couldn't just keep reading. Adulting sucks.

Everyone Dies Famous in a Small Town covers so many different topics, and it felt like the perfect depiction of small town life. Some of the stories dig deep, Hitchcock definitely didn't holdback when it came to dark subject matter, but she wrote about such difficult situations so beautifully.

I think if you love small town vibes as much as I do, you'll really enjoy the endearing cosiness of these stories, and how they all subtlety interconnect🧡

Content Warnings

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

5.0

Overall review: Hitchcock has created a masterpiece short-story collection. She is so great at characterization that every single one of them feels unbelievably real. She’s also amazing at capturing small town environments and all the hidden things within them. All the stories weave together in ways I truly did not expect but were complete perfection. The writing style is raw and honest with hints of lyricism. I absolutely recommend it to everyone interested in slice-of-life stories. You can see my (rambly) reviews of individual stories below with content warnings. If one story has content that triggers you, you can still get a lot out of the collection, but you might miss the easter egg references.

Angry Starfish: 5 stars, great visualization, truly captures grief, I really enjoyed it. CW: grief, death of a parent

Pigeon Creek: 4 stars, I didn’t realize the stories were connected, her writing is so realistic, this was very dramatic like watching a car crash (lmao), plays with the senses. CW: car crash, sex, infidelity, alcohol

Sea Shaken Houses: 5 stars, this is absolutely my favorite so far, so much imagery, the characterization was beautiful, great plot *chef’s kiss* I want more, I love Jane. CW: body horror, death, sexual assault

Parking Lot Flowers: 4.5 stars, this one was a lot darker, easy to feel the characters emotions, tells an entire story in such a short story. CW: sexual assault, homophobia

The Right Kind of People: 5 stars, so good and dark and fiery. Amazing wordsmithing, gross and gritty like the subject at hand. CW: sexual assault, sexual content

Basketball Town: 4.75 stars, I love how the stories are weaved together, this was a great way to show familial pressure, I wish it was longer to make the story as fully fleshed as the others. CW: sexism, anti-native racism

Alaska Was Wasted on Us: 4 stars, this one felt a bit more juvenile than the rest but it did make my heart race with suspense. CW: mild child missing

The Stranger in the Woods: 4.5 stars still not as deep or fleshed out as the earlier ones, but still overall really good at analyzing relationships and the hidden things in small towns, specifically trust and gossip. Also, the connections are so good, the one didn’t hit me until after I finished and I literally gasped. CW: child murder, possible adult/minor relationship

There’s Gas in the Tank, Louise!: 5 stars, this literally made me cry, it is so emotional. I love the unreliable narrator and I think the way it was done was amazing. This was a good story to wrap up the collection. CW: drugs, child death

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