the first story in this collection was okay, the next i didn't like, and then basically everything after was great. there was maybe one more that didn't work all that well for me, but otherwise, the rest of these were a fun collection of quirky, dark, funny, and strange (but not too strange) and i really liked them. ( )

I've enjoyed Joanne Harris' novels for about ten years; she's one of just a handful of female novelists I follow. Her ability to bring a location and an atmosphere to life for the reader is almost unparalleled, but those are qualities that are highlighted by the long form of the novel. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to get with her short stories, and...well, I think my hesitation was justified.

It's not that the stories are in any way *bad.* They're not. Several of them simply feel very bitty. In a couple of cases, this is intentional; something like "Any Girl Can Be a CandyKiss Girl!" is intentionally tiny because it revolves around a single joke. Others, though, simply pull out the "gotcha" too far. I dare any experienced reader not to predict the general thrust of "The Ugly Sister," "Al and Christine's World of Leather" or "Last Train to Dogtown" within a couple of pages. It's not that they're written poorly, but they're predictable, and Harris doesn't get the length she needs to make the journey feel worthwhile regardless.

The best stories are, frankly, longer, and allow Harris to paint a picture through first-person perspective. "Gastronomicon" is just as simple, really, as some of the other stories mentioned, but it tickles the fancy a little bit more just through the sheer naivete of the narrator. Even better is "Class of '81," a quirky class reunion story, and best of all is "Breakfast at Tesco's," which finds a lover of old movies trapped as a bystander in a modern-day situation. Even "The Little Mermaid," which wears its fairy-tale-update aspect right there on its sleeve, is made more powerful through Harris' use of first person. ( )

Classy collection of short stories. Lots of variety
Read May 2006 ( )

rabck from MyssCyn; short stories. Uneven reading for me. Faith and Hope Go Shopping was a nice lark, Auto-da-fe was creepy but intriguing and written very tightly. But others were just too loosely written. ( )

most stories were good, a few stupid. ( )