More like 4.5 stars. This is easily the best book I've read this year, maybe the best book I've read in a while. This is the kind of book you buy even though you have read the library's copy because you want to keep it close to you. There are a handful of stand-alone stories and two sets of four stories that follow a group of people over time; one set (William and Clare) is about an adulterous couple and one (Lionel and Julia) is about a stepmother and her adoptive family. The second set had a s...

Fair warning: Amy Bloom is a writer that some readers--including many avid readers, bright readers--simply will not "get." Anyone whose appreciation of book reading is based on the experience of opening the book and then, within 30 pages, knowing which genre traditions (even those of "literary fiction") will serve as your guide and mitigate any confusion should just cross Bloom off your list.She's not a minimalist--although her genius resembles that style, and she's one of the great contemporary...

The fine writing and audiobook reader compelled me to finish this. But for all the 'love the unloveable' vibe I got from it, for all of my really wanting to love this book, I just couldn't. The characters had interesting moments, but mostly I didn't like them, I felt sorry for them, and they depressed me. The night after I was done, the book gave me nightmares.

I really, really disliked this book. It seems that the more books that I read by Amy Bloom the less I like her books, and I don't know if that's because I just started with the best rated ones, so they legitimately got worse as I went on or if she just wore me down.This book was a book of short stories composed of 2 sets of short stories, each with its own reoccurring characters, and a few extra short stories thrown in. I really hated all of the stories in the sets. The extra stories were more o...

I had seen this book on the Goodreads giveaway page awhile back, and although I entered, I am so glad I did not win the giveaway. Thank goodness this is a library book I can take back!The book was told in several small stories which I was not expecting. I was a bit thrown by the format because some chapters were related and there was a break in the book to let the reader know a new story was starting. However some chapters that followed were not a continuation of the preceding chapter so it thre...

"We were never lovers. We just had sex," she says. But it is not what she believes. They were lovers just as ugly babies are still babies."As it turns out, Amy Bloom describes this book of Amy Bloom's in the best way possible. Or at least, it is the best way to describe the two major stories, more like novellas, each told in four acts. In the first story of the "William and Claire" sequence, two married, middle-aged platonic teacher friends -- she a bit neurotic and he morbidly obese -- start fo...

This started out really well. I loved the first story, I really liked the second story, I enjoyed the third story, and from there I would rather have had repeated root canals with hardly any pain management than keep reading. Good god, dull doesn't even touch it. A serious case of don't fix what isn't broken I guess.

"Amy Bloom gets more meaning into individual sentences than most authors manage in whole books." - The New YorkerBut for 'most authors' I'd like to substitute 'Jonathon Franzen'. Although 'most authors' is entirely accurate, I'm endeavouring to slip a bit of Franzen hate in whatever chance I get. You can imagine how tiring I am in real life. If only authors like Bloom got just a teensy bit of the hands-down-the-pants love that Franzen gets then, fuck, I don't know the world would be a better pla...

Bloom's background in psychology gives her amazing insight into the human psyche, which she uses to full advantage in these lovely, mesmerizing stories, written with sympathy and wisdom. The critics seemed genuinely surprised that there could be any uncharted territory in the world of love, but Bloom adeptly maps the human heart without sentimentality or cliché. They lavished praise on her deeply affecting prose and "uncommonly fully formed" characters (New York Times), admiring her use of indiv...

A very middle-of-the-road story collection. Each story was about a different love affair and many of the stories overlapped with the same characters. I found I didn’t love or hate any of the stories, just so-so overall.

A somewhat interesting collection of short stories - some stories relating to the previous one; some just a story on it's own. A bit on the dull side. Amy Bloom's style of writing did not completely capture me but I continued on to the end and am glad I did. I was also glad it was a library book and not one I purchased.

http://www.tkreviews.org/#/where-the-...In American culture, the various kinds of human love—romantic or familial for instance—come with socially acceptable norms and responsibilities. The ultimate customary expression of romantic love is marriage between two well-matched people. In a conventional demonstration of familial love, children are expected to care for their elderly parents. But what happens when two old friends who are married to other people realize that they are soul mates? Or when

DISCLAIMERI'm not much on short stories, and I'll admit that I'm using a generalization here, but so many of them are too something. Like contrived edginess for the sake of being edgy. Like a tribal tattoo on the small of your back, but you don't know what the symbol means. And other times they just don't feel satisfying. They require the same level of commitment as dating someone who is moving in a week: Enough time for a fling to create the illusion that he doesn't crap, but not enough time to...

Amy Bloom is one of my favorite contemporary authors. She achieves things that I have only dreamed of. For example, the first thing I thought of after reading this collection of short stories was, "Damn. Now THAT is how you write a story about an extra-martial affair."

Interesting collection of short stories--can't touch Away, but I'm not sure much can. Some of the stories were longer, including chapters almost, which I didn't really care for. I'd rather see a whole story than an extended snippet, but it was interesting. Lots of "mature love," which is a little gross, but I'll be old someday, I guess...just don't really like reading about that now.

Oh my goodness Amy Bloom I just fell in love with you. I can't believe I've gone so long without you! I don't tend to be the biggest short story fan. But each story stood on its own spectacularly - and to have them tie together in a series was just too much for my brain. Such sharply drawn characters. Unconventional love stories. Even when I was recoiling I was sucked in. Bravo!

Disappointing, because her first collection of stories was so stunning and original. A bookjacket-reviewer said something like, "She packs more into a single sentence than most writers put into an entire novel." I wholeheartedly agree, even here, with this odd collection of forced and stale material. Read one sentence and you're sucked right into another world. Depite its shortcomings, Bloom continues to be a wonderful writer here, who is still exploring surprising subjects with an unflinching a...

Amazing.Does that say enough?I picked it up, I read the first sentence, and that was all she wrote. Well, no, she wrote much, much more, and I loved it all.In particular, I love the story series that started with "Sleepwalking" and ended with "Fort Useless and Fort Ridiculous". The stories stay with this same odd little family - beginning with a widow sleeping with her newly adult stepson as they both try to handle grief - all the way through years until the widow's death. That first story, "Sle...

An extraordinary, compassionate collection of stories. Laced with a romantic spirit yet anything but soft. In these tales, Love- as it will do- insists on sacrifice, regrets and compromise, and will occasionally concede a small dose of comfort or satisfaction here and there to prolong the game. Two quartets of internally linked tales steal the thunder here. The first follows a late in life change of partners within a circle of friends in academe. Tender and mature, this initial series sets a ref...

My God, it's a rare thing indeed to read a collection of short stories and enjoy every single one. But I did here, especially the William and Clare stories. Bloom is a masterful writer. My first encounter with Amy Bloom's writing was her novel Away, and really hoped I could enjoy her short stories as much. I am glad I hadn't read her in literary journals and earlier books before this though, as some had been previously published. I do think I will check out her backlist though.