A review by bufally47
The Best American Short Stories 2013 by Elizabeth Strout, Heidi Pitlor

2.0

Until about halfway though, I was having an abysmal time with this collection. Everything seemed to be about DIY home-construction projects, children, and God. It surprised me how different these collections can be from year to year. I still think about a few of the stories from the one edited by T.C. Boyle – the especially strange, otherworldly ones – but Elizabeth Strout’s selections were much more down to earth. Two or three of them (especially “The Tunnel, or The News from Spain”) did really grab me, but overall this was more of a dud than the 2015. Maybe it would’ve had more magic if I hadn’t previously read “The Semplica-Girl Diaries.”