Review from OnlineBookClub.org
The short stories vary in genre and length, the shortest being of one page and the longest being sixteen pages. They all are very interesting, touching subjects such as race, poverty and disability. My favourites were “The Gift”, for Catherine’s point of view of disability; “The Indelible Myth”, because the mix-up of rumors and actual memories, especially from a child’s perspective is a topic very close to me; “Dilemma”, treating one of the biggest moral questions of society, where to draw the line on when euthanasia is the right thing to do or not; “The Amish Girl” with a stunning platonic love between two people so different, yet so similar; “Big Gene”; “Clouds”, which gives us a perspective on another important and complicated query of life and on how others easily judge the ones who choose to entrust a loved one to an institution; and lastly, I loved the pacing of “Reddog” and how the details of the story slowly unfold with each session and the evolution of Billie’s thoughts on Ms. Pearlstein shown through the drawing on the wall of his cell.
It is amazing how the emotions and humanity of the characters were magnificently described by the author. It allows you to step into the shoes of the characters and feel engrossed in the story, also thanks to the first person narration of some stories. In most stories there isn’t a clear distinction of bad and good, only characters with feelings, vices and virtues like we all do.
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