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A review by 13iscute
Complete Stories by Kurt Vonnegut
3.0
I finally finished this more than 3 years after starting. The stories themselves ranged from 1 to 4.5 stars for me, averaging 3.1 stars. (yes, I rated every story). My favorites (4.5 star) were "Just You and Me, Sammy" and "Jenny". The best section was "Futuristic" (3.6 star average) and the worst was "Romance" (2.75 star average).
As for the collection overall, the categories didn't really work for me - a lot of stories didn't seem to fit any of the categories. The introductions for the categories started strong, then felt like they were running out of steam by the end. I think I would have rather just organized by original short story collection, or by date published, or by magazine published. I would also have liked to see the publication about each story printed with the story (e.g. original publication date and magazine, original short story collection.) I still don't know which were the 5 never-before-published stories.
There are some gems of stories in here. There are 24 stories (out of 98) that I rated 4 stars or higher. And there was a 4 star read in almost every section (except the short section "The Band Director").
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I received an ARC of this book in a Goodreads giveaway and am looking forward to working my way through it. It may take awhile, because it is a hefty volume at 960 decent-sized pages with small print! The book claims to be "the first complete collection of Vonnegut's short fiction" and includes 97 stories, including those published in magazines and collections during his life, those published posthumously, and 5 previously unpublished stories. I'm sure I will find some great stories in here.
As for the collection overall, the categories didn't really work for me - a lot of stories didn't seem to fit any of the categories. The introductions for the categories started strong, then felt like they were running out of steam by the end. I think I would have rather just organized by original short story collection, or by date published, or by magazine published. I would also have liked to see the publication about each story printed with the story (e.g. original publication date and magazine, original short story collection.) I still don't know which were the 5 never-before-published stories.
There are some gems of stories in here. There are 24 stories (out of 98) that I rated 4 stars or higher. And there was a 4 star read in almost every section (except the short section "The Band Director").
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I received an ARC of this book in a Goodreads giveaway and am looking forward to working my way through it. It may take awhile, because it is a hefty volume at 960 decent-sized pages with small print! The book claims to be "the first complete collection of Vonnegut's short fiction" and includes 97 stories, including those published in magazines and collections during his life, those published posthumously, and 5 previously unpublished stories. I'm sure I will find some great stories in here.