There were 20 stories and they REALLY varied in how much I liked each of them. Below are my individual ratings; right of the colon is the number that the story appeared in the collection. 2 stars: 1, 2, 3, 10, 13, 143 stars: 7, 11, 124 stars: 4, 6, 9, 15, 17, 195 stars: 5, 8, 16, 18, 2070 / 20 = 3.5 star average

3.5 stars. Top 5 in order of appearance:1. Brown Girls, Daphne Palasi Andreades2. Malliga Homes, Sindya Bhanoo3. Endangered Species: Case 47401Tweet from Crystal Wilkinson: "Anybody interested in a short story about feral cats and mice and racism and the power of Black women and police brutality and the south and Appalachia written in Black English as defined by Toni Cade Bambara?"4. The Other One, Tessa Hadley5. Freedom from Want, Joan SilberI also liked Anthony Doerr's The Master's Castle and

The stories that I liked least were pretty good and the best ones were very good, and I wouldn't ask more from a collection like this. In keeping with modern times, many of these were depressing. Humor or an uplifting story is rare here.

Sigh... I hate short stories. I mean, they're addicting. They're a palate cleanser for me between novels when I'm in a rut. But they're terribly depressing. They always try to distill life's deep moments into a pill of sensation, and in avoiding lengthy exposition become stark and abrupt. There are gems here, for sure, but much of the usual as well. My favores in a nutshell: Things We Worried about When I Was Ten by David Rabe was the most emotionally evocative. It captured the weirdly intense m...

Not finished, but thus far my favorite compilation of short stories in a series like this. Likely because Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the editor.I'm reading one a day v. my usual style of binging stories until I'm finished with the book (not really an ideal way to understand or take in the short story form for me). I'm trying more intentionally not to frame reading as a competitive, productive game, and books as something to get through so I can say I finished it -- because if I think about it -...

Thanks Anchor Books and Netgalley for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review. How fitting this book is for Short Story September! I've pre-ordered a copy for myself bc it's the kind of book worth revisiting with fresh eyes from time to time. It's so very rare that I look forward to picking up an anthology after i put it down, but this well-curated collection did it for me. Each story brings something unique to the table, all sensible and thought provoking with the precision

I was excited to read this book, as I love good short stories, especially those by Alice Munro and writers like her. While I really enjoyed some of these stories, many were just a little too highbrow for me. For example, "Delandria" is a story about a professor, Magna, who is mourning the loss of her lover, another academic who has moved on, thus leaving Magna stuck in a small town. As a black woman in small town America, there are certainly some issues that need to be overcome, so I get the iss...

So many beautiful stories. Great introduction by Adichie. All the stories read like beauties on the tongue. Standouts: 1. Becoming the Baby Girl (funny and sad at the same time. Such complexity) 2. Brown Girl( full of beautiful poetic renditions) 3. Endangered Species: Case 47401:(Come for the cats; boil at racism. Funny and completely beautiful.) 4. Things we did when we were Ten: such a glorious story about childhood. 5. White Noise: a metoo redemption for Harvey. Beautiful writing. Overall be...

The standouts for me were (in the order in which they appear in the book) Crystal Wilkinson's Endangered Species: Case 47401, Alice Jolly's From Far Around They Saw Us Burn, Adachioma Ezeano's Becoming the Baby Girl, Tiphanie Yanique's The Living Sea, Caroline Albertine Minor's Grief Garden, and Jianan Qian's To the Dogs.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eARC in exchange for an honest review.The Best Short Stories collections never fail to disappoint! Featuring twenty stories from O. Henry Prize winners, this year's collection deals deeply with life, love, loss, and the complexities of navigating the modern world.I'm not sure that I have much to say beyond that I really, really enjoyed this collection. The pieces were all written at an elevated level; none of them wasted time or space,

Picked this up on a whim when I couldn’t find the book that I originally went looking for. A great introduction to some amazing writers.

Although I've been an avid short stories reader, It's the first time I read a collection of contemporary stories mainly by newly discovered authors. It's a tiring task reviewing this collection of such diverse stories filled with different approaches to human suffering and address all their complexity and literary mastery. While some stories replicated the "conventional" style I'm so used to (having read mostly classics), others brought novel formats that intended to capture modernity in racial,...

Special thanks to Know Doubleday Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with this ARC in return for my honest opinion.This is a great anthology book and deserving of the O. Henry Prize with award winning stories. I feel like this book had some really great stories in it. I had favorites of course like White Noise by Emma Clone and Grief's Garden by Caroline Albert one Minor but there are many, many great treasures in this book. Of course, in an anthology book, there are some stories that are

~3.5 averageBrown Girls: 2.5/5I don't think I, as the audience, got out of this story what the author intended to convey.Two Nurses, Smoking: 4/5This is what I would have guessed would be my favorite short story going in. I did love the style.Malliga Homes: 5/5Endangered Species: Case 47401: 5/5The story that has stuck with me the mostFrom Far Around They Saw Us Burn: 4.5/5These last three stories were my favorite sequence of the collection, and all represent very different aspects of short stor...

I took a long time with this collection (I guess short stories still aren't my favorite) but I did enjoy it. Perhaps to be expected from the pedigree of the Prize, but the writing was all very well done. There were some stories I liked more than others but I wouldn't say any of them were bad. It wasn't a heavy collection either, the tone was more introspective than sad, or even dramatic. Editor Ngozi Adichie says in her opening that many of the stories have a "gorgeous grave grace" and you certa...

For me great short stories are truly a test of an accomplished writer - there’s so much to be delivered in a few pages to connect with and satisfy the reader. I found a few stories in this collection did the job, some, were close but didn’t quite get there, and others that didn’t come close. This collection of short stories is wide ranging in themes, settings, and writing styles resulting in a nice diverse package and a list of authors to follow into the future. My favorites include: Malliga Hom...

Thanks Anchor Books for an advanced copy of this book. The craft of writing of each story was evident. They were all beautifully written. Perhaps because we are in the midst on a pandemic, the subject matter of most stories was sad and depressing. Current topics were covered, Harvey Weinstein and "me too" in White Noise, depression in Witness, cancer and accidents and death in others. This book is meant to be read in short bursts, between other, perhaps happier, books. Ingesting it all at once w...