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clarkness's review
3.0
Kind of a middling volume in this venerable quarterly. "The Grove" by Nelly Reifler was heartbreaking and beautiful. Richard Onyango's autobiographical short was the best part of this issue and I generally enjoyed the work from Kenya. "Dust and Memory" was the only dud in that section. "Cheesus Christ" and "Still Looking" were the other standouts. The rest was meh or worse.
chelseamartinez's review
3.0
Liked Jess Wolter, Nelly Reifler, Edan Lepucki, John Hyduk, Kevin Moffatt, Joe Meno, Richard Onyango stories.
shawntowner's review
4.0
The Kenyan stories were a little meh, but the rest of the issue is solid. German girls who want to be eaten by lions, bored yuppies, empathetic mind-reading rabbits, women turning into birds, Irish beat-downs during the Troubles--there's a little something for everyone. Probably the best McSweeney's since the Panorama issue.
canadianbookworm's review
3.0
This collection wasn't one of my favorite McSweeney's collections. Even the binding of the book didn't stand up. I read it as my bedside book, so the failure of the book spine was related to abuse on my part. I think it was design. Some stories I liked, beginning with the excerpt from A Moment in the Sun by John Sayles, tucked in a pocket inside the front cover. The selection of African stories I found less enjoyable, perhaps because they were written outside the story format I'm more familiar with, perhaps because they portrayed Africans in a negative way (they are by Africans, so that's allowed, isn't it!) I generally enjoy the McSweeney's and there is usually something in every issue that I find surprising or challenging, but this time I didn't enjoy the experience as much. And now I need to figure out how to glue the spine back on.
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