This is a beautiful collection of short stories. Moore has a way of describing characters that can break my heart, and she captures the melancholy at the center of everyday lives. Many of her descriptions have the shock and immediacy, the rightness, of good poetry, only in prose form. My favorite stories are "Two Boys," "You're Ugly, Too," and "Like Life." Recommended. ( )

Lorrie Moore was recommended to me by a friend whose taste in books I very much appreciate. She mentioned a different title; however, since this was the only book by Moore that I saw at the bookstore, I went with it. I found this collection of short stories to be up and down. Half of them held my interest well, and I was invested in the characters. "Places to Look for Your Mind" and "Like Life" were my favorites. The other half, unfortunately, I had to push myself through to finish. None of them were so exceptional that they grabbed me and planted themselves in my brain. I had to look back at the stories before writing this review, in fact, to remember more than a few scattered memories of scene and plot. To be fair, it's just plain hard to write short stories that great. I guess I'm spoiled from reading anthologies of short fiction where the best of the best is picked out for you. I do like slice of life short fiction, where the point of the story is the evolution of the character rather than anything plot-driven, and all of Moore's stories were of this nature. Also, she wrote some very unique characters. To put it all together, I liked the book well enough to keep it on my shelves, and I'm willing to give the author another shot. Maybe I just didn't give myself enough time to get involved with these particular stories. ( )

This is what I wrote in 1999 when I read this book:

I bought this book because of a great short story I read in The New Yorker. These aren't as good, but I think probably because they're older. I mean, she's gotten better. A little mannered in places. But good.