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A review by jasonfurman
Marry Me by Dan Rhodes
3.0
Another collection of extremely short stories from Dan Rhodes, these are very much in the style of his previous collection Anthropology. The form of the stories is actually somewhat more varied, in that those stories were all 101 words long while these range from a paragraph to a page. And many of the stories, taken individually, are enjoyable and interesting to read. But taken together, this new collection lacks the variety, depth and coherence of Anthropology. My review of that collection said the stories "amount to an anthropology of modern relationships, capturing the full range of emotions from funny to romantic to sad." In contrast, Marry Me is depressingly monotonous, with story after story about broken off engagements, divorce, affairs, superficial focus on looks, etc. Any one of them is fine--or even a novel length version of any one of them would have been fine--but dozens of separate stories all with the same point gets tedious and painful.
To give a sample, here is one of the stories, titled "Anniversary":
"On our first anniversary I held Maranatha’s hand, looked into her eyes and told her that even though I wouldn’t have thought it possible I loved her even more deeply than I had on our wedding day.
"‘It’s funny,’ she said. ‘I’ve gone completely the other way. Come to think of it, I’m amazed I’ve stayed as long as I have. There’s no way I’m going to be here next year.’"
To give a sample, here is one of the stories, titled "Anniversary":
"On our first anniversary I held Maranatha’s hand, looked into her eyes and told her that even though I wouldn’t have thought it possible I loved her even more deeply than I had on our wedding day.
"‘It’s funny,’ she said. ‘I’ve gone completely the other way. Come to think of it, I’m amazed I’ve stayed as long as I have. There’s no way I’m going to be here next year.’"