Scan barcode
A review by eileen_critchley
The Best Short Stories 2023: The O. Henry Prize Winners by Lauren Groff, Jenny Minton Quigley
dark
emotional
funny
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
3.5
Lauren Goff's intro made me excited to dig into this book; I loved how she feels about reading short stories, why we read them, and what good ones do for us.
Many of these stories I really enjoyed, and some fell short for me, but that's the nature of these anthologies. My personal favorites were: Office Hours, The Haunting of Hajji Hotak, Ira & the Whale, The Commander's Teeth, The Locksmith, After Hours at the Acacia Park Pool, Elision, Xífù, and The Blackhills. I always appreciate in these collections when they include the authors' thoughts on their stories at the end.
This isn't one I read consistently every year but I may try to pick it up for 2024 as well.
{library, paperback}
Many of these stories I really enjoyed, and some fell short for me, but that's the nature of these anthologies. My personal favorites were: Office Hours, The Haunting of Hajji Hotak, Ira & the Whale, The Commander's Teeth, The Locksmith, After Hours at the Acacia Park Pool, Elision, Xífù, and The Blackhills. I always appreciate in these collections when they include the authors' thoughts on their stories at the end.
This isn't one I read consistently every year but I may try to pick it up for 2024 as well.
{library, paperback}