Maybe I’m just not cut out for short stories. I don’t know. But of the 22 stories in this collection, I only really liked five of them. It seemed like the others I either just did not get or did get, really, no really, no please stop explaining it I GET IT. So yeah.

But the ones I did like were good! Those touched on themes of relationships: friends with benefits, friends without any benefits, how friends change over the years or even the days. All of them I thought got right to the heart of the matter and ended with just the right touch… I wish the others had done so well.

There’s not much to say in specific as these stories are, on average, 10 pages long. If you don’t read all of the stories, do read “Apple-Core Baltimore,” as that is my hands-down favorite.

Rating: 5/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2009, Support Your Local Library Challenge)