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A review by zoemig
Life Is Short and Then You Die by Kelley Armstrong
2.0
I don't read a lot of short story collections, it's just not my favourite genre, but Kelley Armstrong is absolutely one of my favourite authors so when she edits a collection--which includes a story from her--I'm definitely going to have to make an exception. Life is Short and Then You Die: Mystery Writers of America Presents: First Encounters with Murder includes stories from 18 different authors, most of whom I hadn't read from before, but there are some familiar names such as Armstrong, Melissa Marr, R. L. Stine, and Emmy Laybourne.
I'm definitely not going to review every story in the collection but I will say that unfortunately my favourite was Armstrong's, which starts off the book, and then meant everything afterwards was somewhat disappointing. In "Floater" a teen girl see a body found floating in the water and works to figure out what happened. It was really well-written, and had a lot of character depth for such a short story, and just continues to remind me why I love Armstrong's writing so much. The second story, "The Day I Killed Coach Duffy", was by Stine, and it was weird but still wonderful. I also liked "The Boy In the Red Vans" by Rachel Vincent, which had a fun (albeit predictable) twist. Unfortunately, the majority of the stories were brief, expected, and felt pretty repetitive. I did think there would be more mystery in a collection about murders. If you like short story collections you might enjoy this more than I did, but despite liking some of the stories Life is Short and Then You Die the only author whose full works it left me wanting to pick up was Armstrong's--and I was going to do that regardless.
I'm definitely not going to review every story in the collection but I will say that unfortunately my favourite was Armstrong's, which starts off the book, and then meant everything afterwards was somewhat disappointing. In "Floater" a teen girl see a body found floating in the water and works to figure out what happened. It was really well-written, and had a lot of character depth for such a short story, and just continues to remind me why I love Armstrong's writing so much. The second story, "The Day I Killed Coach Duffy", was by Stine, and it was weird but still wonderful. I also liked "The Boy In the Red Vans" by Rachel Vincent, which had a fun (albeit predictable) twist. Unfortunately, the majority of the stories were brief, expected, and felt pretty repetitive. I did think there would be more mystery in a collection about murders. If you like short story collections you might enjoy this more than I did, but despite liking some of the stories Life is Short and Then You Die the only author whose full works it left me wanting to pick up was Armstrong's--and I was going to do that regardless.