Boys and Girls Like You and Me: Stories

I don’t usually care much for short stories; I don’t understand them most of the time, and so they bore me. This collection is different. It grabbed me from the first paragraph and never let go. In each of these eleven stories about young women and girls (and one young boy), I recognized either myself or people I know. There are many, many ways that a woman can mess up her life, and several of these ways are brought to living, breathing, despairing life in these tales. It’s uncanny how vivid these short tales are, despite dealing with the mundane situations of life.

Affairs with married men, trying too hard to be accepted, allowing a betrayal to ruin one’s life, compulsive lies- they’re all here, bad choices aplenty. In all show more these stories, you have the feeling that these lives could have reached dead ends, but you keep hoping for these people. Each story *does* end with the possibility that these lives can be turned around. These are stories about women and girls, but it’s not chick lit. show less

Two stories here work for me: "Captains Club" and the title story, "Boys and Girls Like You and Me". I'd give "Captains Club" 3.5 or 4 stars and "Boys and Girls Like You and Me" 3 or 3.5. In the rest, most of the characters (mostly female), except some children who come out pretty well, are just awful, and not in particularly poignant or interesting ways. They seem to have just given in to the worst of life in a defeatist way. They can't get over anything, they can't make anything of themselves, they are defined by their victimhood, they choose debasement, they are spiteful. As a reader, rather than feeling bad for them or empathizing with them, I just felt polluted by their attitudes, their selfishness, their laziness.

This collection of short stories is one of the best explorations of female emotion and depth that I have read in a very long time. While there are a couple of times I found myself wanting to stop reading, as I was fed up with the bleakness of the female existence and pitiful nature of some of the characters, I forced myself to venture on. For that, I am very thankful.

This is a strong reminder that humanity has rough spots, and that women of all ages deal with pain and sadness in a very distinct set of ways. There are the bitches. There are the loners. There are the women who cycle through complacency and paranoia. And I could recognize a piece of myself in each of these stories.

However, I have to say, one of the strongest stories has a show more lead male. "Captain's Club" is one of the saddest tales I have ever read. show less

Damaged and damaging young girls and young women (and one young boy) are the stars of Kyle’s eleven moving and almost painful short stories. The process of maturity is never an easy or smooth one for Kyle’s protagonists, some of whom willfully throw themselves into paths leading to self-destruction, others of whom learn both the costs and the benefits of betraying others for self-gain. Stand-outs in the collection include “Nine,” “Sex Scenes from a Chain Bookstore,” and the title story. Recommended for fans of the short fiction of Lorrie Moore, Margaret Atwood, and Aimee Bender.

Boys and Girls Like You and Me is a group of short stories about young people, from children through young adulthood, whose families have broken down in some way. A few are unbearably sad and a few have moments of hope at the end.

The most poignant tells of a nine-year-old whose mother left and now her father has brought home a girlfriend. The best of the book was a story called Economics, in which a college freshman watches another girl crumble under the weight of familial expectation. It has the most gorgeous and unexpected ending, not happy by any stretch, but hopeful.

This was a great book of short stories about various girls and women, most of whom make poor choices in friendships or relationships. I really liked about every story in the book. The writing was great. I enjoyed the dark humor in many of the stories and was touched by many of them. I recommend this book.

These stories are so disappointing. I loved Kyle's first book, and was really anxious to read this one. But the characters are too strange to be real; the situations are also un-believable, in that they're too weird to seem authentic. Disappointing...