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bookishlibrarian 's review for:
The Angel of Rome: And Other Stories
by Jess Walter
emotional
funny
reflective
One of the things I admire about Walter as a writer is that he takes on different genres, characters, and styles in his work. The same is true of this collection. My favorite stories were "Mr. Voice" a lovely story about a stepparent, "Fran's Friend Has Cancer" which has a delightful twist, "Magnificent Desolation" with a great middle school science teacher protagonist, and "Before You Blow" had a great payoff. "Angel of Rome" was also entertaining and funny, but the overly quirky characters and absurd plot points kept it from being a standout for me. This was a great collection where almost all of the individual stories would rate 3 or mostly 4 stars (no really weak ones), but nothing that quite rose to a 5 star story for me--a lot of stories I really enjoyed in the moment, but not any that will really stick with me like the best short stories do.