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Book Review: Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk (Bottom of TBR Pile Challenge)
Summary:
A bunch of people sign up, individually, for a writer’s retreat. Telling no one where they’re going, they vow to write the next great American novel. They wind up locked away in the opposite of the lap of luxury, however. Trapped in a dusty old theater, they quickly become focused on an entirely different type of story. What happens to these writers is interspersed with poetry about each person and short stories written by each of them while locked in the retreat.
Review:
I am a huge Palahniuk fan. Fight Club
I struggle with short story collections. I like them to be all connected somehow, even if it’s just by theme, so at first I really liked the idea of a collection of short stories written by people at a writer’s retreat. It’s a good idea, but it’s not executed very well. The short stories are awesome! The connecting bits of narrative aren’t so much. Basically, the writers decide that they should spin what happens at the retreat to be as horrible as possible to help get a movie deal out of it after the fact. So they focus on twisting the facts and committing atrocities against themselves and each other to make for a better story. I totally got what is being said about writers procrastinating by making drama in their own lives instead of actually writing. I liked that part. But there also wasn’t enough realness in the connecting bits to keep me interested. I found myself dreading them whereas I really enjoyed the short stories, which made for an uneven reading experience.
One of the short stories contained in this collection is Palahniuk’s famous “Guts.” The one that makes people faint. (Palahniuk has made it available online for free here). This was definitely the best short story in the collection, and I can see why it became so famous. It also sets the tone for a lot of the stories in the collection. There’s one with people randomly getting smashed in a city. There’s also one about the possible origins of the Sasquatch myth. My second favorite after “Guts” was actually about an inn near a hot springs in the mountains. That one grossed me out *almost* as much as “Guts,” and also had something deeper to say, I think. All of this is to say that if you read and enjoyed “Guts,” you’ll like the short stories in this collection. They’re gross, horrifying, and stick with you.
Overall, it’s an interesting idea for unifying a short story collection. Ultimately, though, I would have liked it better as a straight-up short story collection, maybe even including the writer’s retreat as a short story by itself. This fact might make me rate the book lower, but the inclusion of so many high quality short stories keeps the book itself rating highly. Grab this if you’ve read and enjoyed “Guts.”
3.5 out of 5 stars
Source: Brookline Booksmith
Book Review: Mulliner Nights by P.G. Wodehouse (Series, #3) (Bottom of the TBR Pile Challenge)
Summary:
Mr. Mulliner has a wide variety of eclectic relatives, and he’s more than happy to tell snippets of their life stories over a pint at the local pub. From a freewheeling artist brought into line by a judgmental cat to a timid fellow who accidentally subscribes to a correspondence course on how to get a backbone to a private detective with such a disturbing smile that criminals readily confess their hijinks keep the patrons of Angler’s Rest in stitches.
Review:
This made it onto my tbr pile thanks to a visit to Harvard Books’ used books and remainders cellar. This was in the remainders pile, and three things drew me to it. 1) It was under $5, 2) The cover has a cat drunk on whiskey on it, 3) I had just read Love Among the Chickens
Don’t worry about this being the third in a series. The only connection among the short stories is the main characters are all a Mulliner (or married to one). It was completely unnecessary to have read the first two books in the series to get into this collection, although I intend now to read all of the Mulliner books. I really appreciated how Wodehouse sets up a structure to hold his short story collection together in one unit. Although they are all self-contained tales, their being together in one collection actually makes sense. They have more in common than just the author. They are literally a family of stories. This helped it hold my interest in a way that many short story collections can’t.
This collection consists of 9 short stories, most of which have some sort of love element. One person wants to be with (or marry) another and must overcome some sort of obstacle (usually caused by British upper-class culture) in order to be with them. Hilarity ensues. My favorite of these was “The Story of Webster,” the cover’s drunk cat. In this a freewheeling artist has his religious uncle drop his cat off with him while he goes on assignment to Africa. The judgmental, sullen cat soon starts to reign in the young artist, much to his and his girlfriend’s chagrin. Everything about this, from the early 20th century fashion and dialogue to the witty commentary on cats and culture works perfectly, particularly for this cat-lover. The story that I thought worked least-well, and unfortunately wraps up the book, is “Gala Night.” A pastor Mulliner accidentally helps a young couple who enjoys dancing to acquire the young woman’s parents’ approval of their union. I didn’t like the religious Mulliner. He just wasn’t funny to me. Similarly the catalyst of a mysterious mood enhancing drink just lacked the creativity found in the other stories. Fortunately, most of the stories fell much closer to the hilarity of the whiskey drinking cat. However, a couple did fall a bit flat for me, which is why while I greatly enjoyed the book, I wouldn’t say I was totally in love with it.
Overall, this is a wonderfully witty collection of short stories held together by an elderly Mulliner who enjoys telling (possibly tall) tales about his family over a pint in the local pub. If you enjoy a dry wit and slapstick humor to top off a cute love story, this collection is for you.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Harvard Books
Previous Books in Series:
Meet Mr. Mulliner
Mr. Mulliner Speaking
Book Review: Fourth Degree Freedom by Libby Heily
Summary:
A collection of five widely varied short stories.
“Thank You For Calling”–A day in the life of a woman working for a call center during the Recession.
“The Event”–A dystopian future where once a year male teens and young adults go out and shoot the elderly.
“Fourth Degree Freedom”–A post nuclear war future where some children are born as different degrees of “monsters.”
“The Last Six Miles”–A woman gets over her divorce by becoming a runner.
“She Floats”–A woman wakes up in a tank with limited oxygen left and a man observing.
Review:
It’s difficult to talk about this collection as a whole, since the stories range so vastly, not only over different genres, but also in quality of writing. Thus, I must address them individually.
“Thank You For Calling”
I don’t usually do contemporary literary, but this one made me smile and sad almost simultaneously. The main character is struggling during the recession, but she also must listen to other people’s problems all day. A bit of a typical storyline? Yes. But still relatable and well-written. 3 stars
“The Event”
The best story in the collection. I recommend to Heily that she turn this one into a novel. A future with no violence and thus overpopulation is typical is dystopian fiction, but Heily takes it in a fun direction. The final scene leaves the reader doubting that the main character knows the truth about his own society. There were also no obvious flaws in the writing itself. 5 stars
“Fourth Degree Freedom”
This personally didn’t hit any of my own hot buttons, but it is well written. The idea of chemicals from war affecting different pregnancies in different ways is an interesting one. Having a sibling see the humanity in the monster child where others do not is rather typical, but still touching. 4 stars
“The Last Six Miles”
Being the fitness nut that I am, I really enjoyed seeing the main character go from a depressed over-eater to a marathon runner. The content of this story is uplifting, even if the ending is a bit predictable. 4 stars
“She Floats”
I was so incredibly disappointed in this one. I had the feeling from the first few sentences that this was basically going to be a Saw rip-off, and it was. There’s nothing wrong with having a psycho kidnap a person and put them in a trap to get out of, but it must have something else in it that makes it different from the well-known series. 1 star
Overall, this collection starts out average, strengthens, then crashes at the end. I also believe Heily may have trouble finding an audience due to the variance from literary to dystopian and then to horror. I would advise her to take the two strong dystopian stories and either make them into novels or write more scifi short stories and repackage them together. Similarly, the literary fiction I believe would strongly appeal to many modern women during this current recession. If she adds more literary stories to these two and packages it as a type of collection for the modern woman, she could have great success with them. The last story must be re-done or trashed, however. It sours the rest.
Essentially, if any of the short stories above appeals to you, I would encourage you to get this book. It is only 99cents, and a good short story is definitely worth that.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Kindle copy from the author in exchange for my honest review
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