A review by theverbalthing
The Best American Short Stories 2011 by Geraldine Brooks, Heidi Pitlor

4.0

We read selections from this book for my advanced fiction workshop. I was deeply impressed with a number of the stories we looked at, though I was also less than intrigued by some of the others. For a collection which purports to contain the Best American Short Stories of 2011, I thought many of them were lacking crucial elements of a good short story, let alone a best one. I think the editors made some interesting choices and could have probably produced a shorter anthology which only featured the more hard-hitting pieces...

But I'm still giving this book a high rating because of the power contained in the pieces that I did read, reread, and adore. It's been an interesting exercise reading these published pieces while struggling to produce work of my own that lives up to the expectations I give myself and my classmates give me.