terrimisu's reviews
111 reviews

So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men by Claire Keegan

4.5

So Late in The Day is a collection of three short stories written by Claire Keegan. Each story is significantly different from the other and serves a different theme. The namesake story is about a man named Cathal who loses the chance to marry the love of his life because of his own woes. I enjoyed this story the most out of the three because of how well written it was and how the ending of the story packs a punch. The story starts off after Cathal meets this unnamed woman he falls for, you can see how plain and banal his life is. Then it cuts to him meeting her and how it feels as if color is introduced in his vision when he meets her and gets to know her. Though, the story quickly takes a turn of events which I personally did not expect but it was a transgression that I absolutely loved. To an extent, I feel that it is amazing commentary on the complexities of female-male relationships and language used between both sexes that are very different from one another.

The second story, The Long and Painful Death, was not my favorite out of the three which is essentially why I gave it 4.5 stars as the rating rather than 5. I feel that the quirkiness of both characters in the story is wonderful but there were points where I got a bit bored of the writing and felt something needed to be added to the story. The part I most enjoyed though was the odd voyeurism aspect of watching the female character move along with her day and watching her rage over her visitor.

Lastly, the third story, Antarctica, follows a married woman who is curious about sleeping with a man when she is out of town Christmas shopping for her family. As the story progresses, we see her slowly let loose and do as she pleases. She happily goes along with this man who she meets in a bar and has her rendezvous but what she doesn’t expect is the frightening quality of losing all freedom to the hands of a stranger with a disguise. The ending is amazing and unexpected, I think the order the stories were put in was an amazing choice made by Claire Keegan. I feel that I actually enjoyed these stories more than Foster which is surprising since I rated it 5 stars. But each story has a quality to it that is addicting and this is a novel everyone should read especially for anyone who is a fan of Claire Keegan’s work.

Mrs Caliban by Rachel Ingalls

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3.5

Foster by Claire Keegan

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hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective fast-paced