You Must Be This Happy to Enter: Stories

As another reviewer here said, given this title of this book, you may be afraid that this book drips with so much irony that it will slip out of your hands as you read it. Don't be. Irony is there at times, but it's applied with a light hand, and Crane is about as funny and surefooted a writer as you'll find, without any of the arch, forced style that infects a lot of short story writers of her generation. And best of all, I'm damned if these stories don't actually give me some hope.

Crane's experiment with writing stories about happy people is interesting, but there are some diminishing returns here. Her previous two collections moved me more. (Perhaps the shock of the new has faded, and that fact is to blame.)

That said, some stories still shine.

Reminded me of Kelly Link, though I’d be more likely to recommend Kelly Link to fans of Elizabeth Crane than the other way around.