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Pretty sure I had/read a first cover hard copy of this back in 94. Lent it out. Wish I had it, 'cause this little book of stories is haunting. Dirty laundry not quite aired. Interlocking lives and stories. Complications. I couldn't have told you before I reread this what the stories were about, but I've always remembered the book, the cover, the (w)holes it left. You can't say that about every book you never got back. And after rereading each little world, I remembered the lives, the unfinished-...
I am amazed or maybe stunned by this collection of short stories. They are all poignant and soul rending. I am especially impressed by the ones that show the same characters but at a different point in life and from a different point of view. Read Three Stories. You'll see what I mean. This is the third book I have read by Bloom; all have been impressive in some way - books I will not forget. Bloom is a psychotherapist who lives in CT. I certainly know my psyche has undergone a therapy of sort r...
This 1993 collection of short stories has been on my to be read list since 2010, and once I started it for my tbr explode project, I couldn't put it down. All stories are focused on relationships, sometimes groups of stories from different perspectives, some are unusual types. Just like I'm used to from later works by this author, she has realistic insight into the inner workings of her characters.
Should a short story collection be graded on its best stories or should it be critiqued as a whole? I ask this question because there are maybe one or two stories in here that are superb, but the rest are good but not great. Silver Water's definitely in that first category. It differs from the other stories in that it's more poetic in its character descriptions and its narrative. Therefore, causing it to flow so well.
I enjoyed this short story collection, particularly the stories which linked together and were told from different character's perspectives. The standalone stories were a bit hit and miss which I often find to be the case with short story collections. But overall I liked Bloom's writing and how it felt like I got under the skin of the main character and exposed their struggles and emotions which were simmering under the surface. The collection had themes which ran through all the stories such as...
Brilliant and mildly disturbing. Completely unputdownable. The author draws the reader in by his/her own humanity. Like trying to tear one’s eyes away from a gruesome accident. The writing is spectacularly seductive...
So I guess Amy Bloom is kinda big in the short story world, and evidently I am not really in the know when it comes to short stories/essays because I had never heard of Amy Bloom when I picked this book up. And I now believe I could have carried on perfectly fine living a totally content life never having read anything by her and I wouldn't have been missing anything except maybe one story that's just disturbingly perverse, which is the only reason it ends up standing out at all."Sleepwalking" t...
Amy Bloom knows how to write a short story. For the most part, the stories are disturbing in that many of the characters have experienced or are experiencing difficult circumstances - death of a loved one, the playing-with-firearms death of a child, mental illness of their own or someone else, or inattentive/disinterested parents. The first and last stories left, for me, a sense of hope, but others made me wonder how life will go on - how will the experience impact their lives?One trio of storie...
Amy Bloom- what an amazing author. She writes so beautifully, and so movingly, I read her and am jealous for a week that I lack this kind of talent. The short story "Silver Water" will knock your socks off, I promise. This is the book for people that don't like short stories. There is one story within this collection that didn't quite do it for me (incest is never a good read), but the rest are just transcendent.
This is my first book by Amy Bloom, so I really had no idea what to expect. Throw in the fact that I don’t read collections of stories very often and this is really new territory for me.Come to Me is a collection of a dozen stories, a few of which are connected by a character or two in common. But in every case, the story has at its core a dysfunctional or inappropriate relationship. We have 18 year olds marrying 50 year olds, married couples taking lovers together, a married woman who has an af...
My mother was never one to have magazines that didn't involve art laying around the house. On rare occasions, I'd find a dog-eared Good Housekeeping or some other similar type of thing that she likely swiped from a Doctor's office and put in her purse to copy a recipe. I swear that once upon a time (say 20 years ago!) I picked up one of these magazines from our bathroom, pages torn and warped from the spray of the shower, and read a beautifully haunting short story that has stuck in my brain eve...
Really good collection of short stories. I found them to be compelling, well written and insightful. The content is emotionally raw. It goes to dark places. But, its fascinating. I was really quite taken with the collection. Amy Bloom has a way with story that gets right to the core of the emotional impact of a variety of life events. Despite the rawness of the content, there is balance within the collection as a whole. There is dark as well as light. I really enjoyed the collection.
These are lovely and insightful short stories. The topics were more edgy when the book was published in the early 90’s, but they stand up well.
A remarkably well written collection of short stories that I couldn't not finish once I began the first story, though I usually have no interest at all in short story collections. I was mesmerized. That said, each story, save the very last one, is decidedly unwholesome. This is why I subtracted 1 star, because I really did not enjoy the content, but they sure do ring true. The writing is 5 star all the way!
I don't usually read collection of short stories. But I saw a few interviews of Amy Bloom in Coursera. So, I got interested reading one or two of her works. The thing with her writing is that the author can get much deeper level of the characters and their thoughts. It made them feel real. They feel relatable. It's not my usual read. But it was good.
A National Book Award Finalist, I'm not sure how to rate this book which is a series of 12 short stories, some of which are multiple tales of the characters at different times of their lives. In some, there is an interweaving of characters. Intense and somewhat interesting, the author brings her knowledge of psychology of people and their motivations.The first story title Love is Not Pie, was, in my opinion, the best in the series, then some of the others fell flat. Ina few there was a creepines...
Come to Me is a fantastic collection of short stories that highlight author Amy Bloom's remarkable, remarkable insight into human perspectives and emotions. Each and every story is original and entertaining, and each engenders a strong emotional response in the reader. The characters populating the stories cover such a wide spectrum of circumstances, attitudes, and behaviors, that Bloom seems to be writing about the whole of humanity. Come to Me is a brilliant and powerful collection of stories,...
Bloom was a practicing psychotherapist, so it’s no surprise she has deep insight into her characters’ motivations. This is a wonderful set of stories about people who love who they shouldn’t love. In “Song of Solomon,” a new mother falls for the obstetrician who delivered her baby; in “Sleepwalking,” a woman gives in to the advances of her late husband’s son from a previous marriage; in “Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines,” adolescent Susan develops crushes on any man who takes an interest in her....
i read this because of "Silver Water," which is a truly great story. didn't really like most of the other stories-- almost all of which seemed to be sad, vaguely icky dissections of strange or inappropriate relationships of one kind or other (mom/stepson, old man/young woman, two men/one woman, married woman/transvestite lover, etc). but then the last two stories in the book were great! "When the Year Grows Old," about a girl whose straight-laced mom has what i guess is a manic episode and start...
Molly Bloom is one of my latest literary crushes. I had never heard of her, but Pam Houston put her on my reading list. I don’t just want to write like Bloom, I want to BE like her. If I had a therapist, I would want her to be my therapist, too. She divides her time between her therapy practice and her writing, and if I had to imagine the ideal fiction writer as psychotherapist, it would be her. She writes about perversions, obsessions, love and passion in its deepest, darkest crevices without a...