I really didn't enjoy the first few stories in this collection. The prose felt very dead and the whole thing felt like a writers workshop exercise where you observe a person and then make up a story about their life: guy at a bar in Dubai, guy who works at a high end fashion retailer, guy who works at a pancake place. Then there was a cat story, so I skimmed that, another story about a very boring character and by this stage I was zipping through it reading a sentence from every fifth show more paragraph. "Contact" I can't really comment on, because I had a fair bit of momentum up by that point, but it did have enough friction to it that it slowed me down to read "An MFA Story" properly.

"Contact" was also the first story about someone who reads, which I decided after the first few stories in this book is more or less a necessity for me in future reading. I'm interested in people who are engaging with the world intellectually or aesthetically. All these characters bumbling around without doing any proper thinking or trying to see what might be outside their own world are just dull. Read a book, people! At least see a film.

Anyway, "An MFA Story" was very good. There seemed to be more tension and momentum and the protagonist seemed to change a bit over the course of the story. It was also much more vivid. The earlier stories each have a few missteps, which are so damaging in a short story where there is so little time to build the world, but "An MFA Story" felt real because the details supported the story, rather than distracting from it. The remaining three stories were solid, "I Feel It" being the best of them.

As I occasionally do with low-starred reviews, I'll make the disclaimer that I use the rating system indicated by hovering over the stars when writing a review:
* did not like it
** it was ok
*** liked it
**** really liked it
***** it was amazing. show less

Jul 31, 2023