Category: Short Stories

I’ve been struggling getting into short story collections lately — but this one was wonderful and reminded me what I really enjoy about reading short stories. This was a collection of stories that shows the lives of seemingly ordinary people from modern-day China. Really, though, in many of the stories, the characters are so normal, … Read More “Land of Big Numbers by Te-Ping Chen” »

I really enjoyed Sayaka Murata’s earlier book Convenience Store Woman. The collection of short stories in Life Ceremony continues down the quirky path set by Convenience Store Woman, but I feel like it jumped almost too far into an uncomfortable and awkward place, although I was left with the impression that this is an issue … Read More “Life Ceremony: Stories by Sayaka Murata” »

I had high hopes for a book described as being a collection of “stories that swing a wrecking ball at our assumptions about women.” However, either my assumptions about women (as someone who identifies as a woman) are vastly different than the assumptions the rest of the general population makes or this is yet another … Read More “Women on Top by Michelle Miller” »

I struggled to get through this one. The first few stories were especially weak, which made it even harder to persist. The later stories were somewhat better, and I wish they would have been moved toward the beginning of the book to encourage interest in reading to the end, but I eventually made it all … Read More “The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes: A Collection of Victorian-Era Detective Stories by G.K. Chesterton” »