A review by kfan
Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories by Tobias Wolff

2.0

I skipped around and read about half of the stories, maybe a little more, but I'm ready to be done now. The stories strike me as well-crafted in a traditional sense, but they're incredibly depressing. Wolff seems to writing more from a morally instructive perspective than a loving perspective, i.e. "Look at the decisions THESE people are making, look at what this couple thinks passes for a conversation, can you BELIEVE these people?!?!" It doesn't make for fun reading, and I can't imagine it was fun writing down at all those characters.

I read a lot of the 5-star reviews that people gave this book to try and figure out what I'm missing, and I guess it's just a matter of my personal tastes. Someone described his characters as people who've been beaten down by life; to me it's more like they were beaten down by their author.