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Title: Sour Heart

Author: Jenny Zhang

Narrator: Greta Jung, Jenny Zhang, full cast

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-01-17

Publisher: Audible Studios for Bloomsbury

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies

Publisher's Summary:

A debut collection of stories that plunge listeners into the tender and chaotic hearts of adolescent girls growing up in New York City, from celebrated poet and National Magazine Award nominee Jenny Zhang.

Critic Reviews:

"I will never forget the first time I read Jenny Zhang... [I was] stunned, moved and - quite frankly - a little jealous.... This book takes Jenny's voice to a new level.... I hope you love Sour Heart as much as I do." (Lena Dunham)

"Zhang's got range: the poet/Rookie writer/essayist and now fiction writer has a voice that's at once incisive and playful and emboldened." (TheMillions)

Members Reviews:

This book could have easily been four or five stories rather than seven without ...

Zhang's writing style is also very enjoyable. She is able to embellish in a way that does not feel frivolous and I found that even the details and tangents that she explored contributed positively to my reading experience and understanding of the stories.

However, these short stories lean more toward character studies than narrative arcs. The stories are generally low in action and high in detail, which is an interesting particular way of writing. However, by the end of the book, it felt very repetitive. This book could have easily been four or five stories rather than seven without really losing any of the interesting qualities of the book. Generally, I prefer collections of character-focused short stories to be shorter, simply because they are so evenly-paced that it starts to feel repetitive, as though you aren't getting anything new from continuing to read.

I was hoping that these stories would be more narrative-based rather than character-focused, but if you love character-focused stories, then you will love this book! It is simply not my preference but I would highly recommend this book if that sounds appealing to you.

I will say that for a debut collection, this book is remarkable. I will happily follow Zhang's career in the future to see how she grows as a writer. Unfortunately, I do not think that this collection is as phenomenal as I would have liked it to be.

Over all, I gave this collection a 3 out of 5 stars, but I could see it easily being a 4 or 5 out of 5 stars for someone who loves character-driven stories.

Brutal Immigrant experience, poverty, acclimating to the American culture

âShe looked like an alien. (But then again, I was an alien, too; that was the box I had to check on every form. Did aliens have unalienable rights? Were we entitled to liberty and justice?)â

Letâs get this out of the way, there are a couple of stories at the start of the collection that some readers may find disturbing, particularly the sexual encounters between Lucy and Francine and the horrible treatment of Frangie. In fact, some people will stop reading there. But not all the stories carry on in that vein and it would be a shame to miss out of Zhangâs solid writing. Too, the children running wild on the streets of Shanghai, coming into power, turning in parents, abusing and punishing their elders, naming any and everyone at their whim as a counterrevolutionary is beyond humiliating and horrific. History is not pretty. I was riveted by their struggles against poverty, trying to acclimate to a completely new culture and how it touched the lives of their children. Every immigrant experience is different. These are not light stories.

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Title: Satirical Existentialisms

Subtitle: Short Stories

Author: Dean Moriarty

Narrator: Michael Hanko

Format: Unabridged

Length: 3 hrs

Language: English

Release date: 06-20-17

Publisher: Dean Moriarty

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies

Publisher's Summary:

This is stream of consciousness writing. This is that search for something within that we all must go through one day to find it.

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Title: Maikro: Haiku & Microfiction

Author: Milo James Fowler

Narrator: Sarah Jones

Format: Unabridged

Length: 39 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-02-17

Publisher: Milo James Fowler

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies

Publisher's Summary:

Maikro collects 112 haiku and 47 works of micro-fiction, most falling in the speculative fiction realm (science fiction, fantasy, horror) with a few literary pieces tossed into the mix:

slick sea stones glimmer

golden leviathan sinks

night soars on gulls' wings

wise elder wordsmyth

telling tales of earth that was

blue skies in our minds

Fallen Angel:

Leathery wings tangled, she falls from heaven's love-making, crashes to Times Square. Rises from the crater. Smiles at the morning after.

Members Reviews:

Nuggets To Be Savored

Milo's "Maikros"--a blend of horror, strange ideas, fantasy and beauty in varying proportions in both Haiku and Micro/Flash Fiction styles. One should only listen to a few at a time, to savor them. I was so fortunate as to receive an AUDIO copy and enjoyed crisp narration with a delightful British accent (only fair as the author is from the UK) lovingly sharing the delightful, the devious and the devilish poetry and prose proffered by an intricate mind.

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Title: A Gathering of Friends

Subtitle: My Favourite Stories

Author: Ruskin Bond

Narrator: Adnan Kapadia

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-01-17

Publisher: Audible Studios

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies

Publisher's Summary:

The 21 stories in this book are the greatest pieces of fiction written by Ruskin Bond. Chosen by the author himself, from a body of work built over 50 years (starting with his award-winning first novel, The Room on the Roof, and ending with Tales of Fosterganj), this collection includes well-known masterpieces like 'The Night Train at Deoli', 'The Woman on Platform No 8', 'Rusty Plays Holi' (from The Room on the Roof), 'Angry River', 'The Blue Umbrella', 'The Eyes Have It', 'Most Beautiful' and 'Panther's Moon' as well as newer stories like 'An Evening at the Savoy with H. H.' (from Maharani) and 'Dinner with Foster' (from Tales of Fosterganj). Taken together, the stories in A Gathering of Friends show why Ruskin Bond has long been regarded as one of the pillars of Indian literature. This is a book that will delight his legions of fans as well as those lucky few who are new to his fiction.

Members Reviews:

Five Stars

Good Book

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Title: Everything but the Bitch

Subtitle: A Collection of Three Novellas

Author: C. Dennis Moore

Narrator: Curt Campbell

Format: Unabridged

Length: 4 hrs and 26 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-04-16

Publisher: C. Dennis Moore

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies

Publisher's Summary:

This collection of three novellas from different genres - supernatural horror, mystery suspense, and historical romance - all blend together to form a perfect mash-up of all things imaginative.

Members Reviews:

Bitchin' story's!

Camdigan: is a take on where we go when we die. I suppose there are parts of the story that could be seen as controversial but hey, it's fiction. Safe At Home: is sort of an "in your head" tale of wrong time, wrong place and the false accusations that can happen when you are. Lastly, Epoch Winter: I have read and reviewed this one before and it's one of my favourite CDM stories. It's predominantly a love story but remember, it's a C. Dennis Moore love story, so don't expect Mills and Boon. Three great tales in one place.

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Title: How Does Your Garden Grow?

Author: Agatha Christie

Narrator: David Suchet

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 25 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-13-16

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies

Publisher's Summary:

A classic collection of Agatha Christie short stories, taken from Poirot's Early Cases and read by David Suchet.

David Suchet, Poirot to perfection, returns with five further short stories taken from the collection entitled Poirot's Early Cases.

The short stories included in this audiobook are:

Each story is entirely self-contained and shows all the essential Poirot qualities. Again we find Poirot's maxim - 'one must seek the truth from within, not without' - proves highly efficient in his pursuit of the truth.

Critic Reviews:

"The plots are so good that one marvels...most of them would have made a full length thriller." (Daily Mirror)

Members Reviews:

superb!

David Suchet is just wonderful. The plot was engaging and it was a joy to listen to this audiobook.

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Title: Compelling Short Stories

Subtitle: Forty Great Classic Tales

Author: H. G. Wells, H. Rider Haggard, Hugh Walpole, W. W. Jacobs, B. M. Croker, G. Ranger Wormser, Gertrude Atherton

Narrator: Cathy Dobson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 17 hrs and 4 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-29-16

Publisher: Red Door Audiobooks

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies

Publisher's Summary:

A rich and varied anthology of inventive classic tales by some of the world's top storytellers.

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Title: The History of Baseball

Subtitle: A Short Story

Author: Christie Hodgen

Narrator: Courtney Patterson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 40 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-22-16

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies

Publisher's Summary:

Has anyone ever told you that baseball is more than a game, that it's really a metaphor for life? Have you ever wondered what they meant? This story imagines the answer.

A single mother moves to Kansas City with her young daughter and notices that everyone she meets - her new colleagues, neighbors, even the mailman - can't stop talking about baseball. "It's more than just a game," they tell the mother. "It's so much more. What you need is to come to a game and experience it." Again and again the mother makes her excuses - she is busy with work, and parenting, and fending off her ex, who keeps drunk texting, threatening to sue for custody - and just doesn't have time to get out to the stadium.

But baseball, it seems, won't take no for an answer. One day a Kansas City Royals outfielder moves into the neighborhood. And things only get stranger from there.... Soon enough the mother begins to realize that her participation in America's favorite pastime might not be optional - it might be compulsory, a mandatory part of American life. In fact, whether she keeps her daughter and her job might depend on her learning to play the game. She stalls as long as she can, until one day an unexpected confrontation with three of baseball's official representatives - a sort of existential World Series - determines her fate.

Christie Hodgen is the author of three highly acclaimed books of fiction, most recently Elegies for the Brokenhearted, hailed by The New York Times Book Review as "the literary equivalent of a hand grenade". Her awards include a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, two Pushcart Prizes, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She lives in Kansas City.

Members Reviews:

Five Stars

___

Great read

I really enjoyed this book and recommend it to everyone. It is humorous and insightful at the same time with honesty.

Misleading Title

Terrible. Has nothing to do with baseball. Don't be fooled by the title.

Quick

A quick powerful story about life and baseball interesting at a crossroads. Found myself waiting more. Wondering about the characters, in a good way.

Odd?!?

This was an "odd" book

To be honest I am not all that certain I can explain it. But it was (in some part) about baseball. So it can't be all that bad. Right?!?

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Title: The Pier Falls

Author: Mark Haddon

Narrator: Clare Corbett, Daniel Weyman

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-05-16

Publisher: Random House Audiobooks

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies

Publisher's Summary:

An expedition to Mars goes terribly wrong. A seaside pier collapses. A 30-stone man is confined to his living room. One woman is abandoned on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean. Another woman is saved from drowning. Two boys discover a gun in a shoebox. A group of explorers find a cave of unimaginable size deep in the Amazon jungle. A man shoots a stranger in the chest on Christmas Eve.

In this first collection of stories by the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon demonstrates two things: first that he is a master of the short form (several of the stories have been longlisted for prizes); second that his imagination is even darker than we had thought.

Members Reviews:

Powerful, desolate, depressing

Without exception, the short stories within this collection are very well written. They are also superbly read. They all deal with death and usually with the collapse of a life; describing the decline that can affect anyone, however confident or otherwise they may appear, detailing the small, seamless steps towards oblivion. These stories span sci-fi and the supernatural, but are mostly set in a mundane, suburban setting. They are narratives of ordinary lives turned upside down, usually with an odd twist.

I cannot deny their crafted and absorbing power, but I have to say I have never found a book so desolate, so devoid of hope and so utterly depressing.

Dark, dark, irrevocably dark!

These nine electrifyingly real, detailed, shocking and disturbing long-short-stories reveal a horribly dark side to, well, everything. I wonder from what kind of imagination Mark Haddon incubates these scenarios? An appendix operation and a birth in graphic detail on board a space mission which has gone hideously wrong; the gradual disintegration of a seaside pier pulling down stricken and floundering human victims; the minutiae of a young woman cleaning up a friendless, hugely obese man. The one I found most gut-wrenchingly ghastly (there was keen competition) was the boys lugging home in a pram a mutilated deer which they had killed and hauling into the lift.

The stories aren't just about disturbing scenarios, however. They explore themes such as loneliness and isolation, particularly within families with remarkable sharpness and visual detail. There are unhappy and broken relationships (Carole returns 'home' from America after such a relationship to help her hostile sister tend their elderly mother who's suffering from dementia - although you feel her mother would have told her daughter she hated her because all she saw in her was Carole's father even if she'd been of sound mind.) There is the present haunted by the inescapable past. Wodwo re-works Gawain and the Green Knight when an armed intruder bursts into an already awful extended family Christmas resulting in violence that will be revenged.

These stories dip in and out of raw social commentary, morality tales and myth, although I must admit that The Island about a princess in a tapestry left me confused. Don't expect anything like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, except perhaps for Haddon's skill at entering into the lives and minds of unusual people in unusual situations.

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Title: Lagniappes Collection 1

Subtitle: A House of Crimson & Clover Short Story Collection

Author: Sarah M. Cradit

Narrator: LC Kane

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-29-16

Publisher: Author Sarah M. Cradit

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 14 votes

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies

Publisher's Summary:

Dive into the secret, ancient, powerful world of two New Orleans families, the Deschanels and the Sullivans.

"Flourish": Anne's entire life has been a lie. She must find the courage to discover who she is, including this terrifying, inexplicable ability she was born with.

"Surrender": Sometimes the purest love is first love.

"Shame": Every dark future begins with a dark past.

"Fire & Ice": An elaborate masquerade ball. Two mischievous, powerful twins. The possibilities are endless.

"Dark Blessing": Kelley's lifelong belief in vampires is about to take an interesting twist.

Members Reviews:

Another good story

What did you like best about this story?

I like how it gave the history behind the characters.

Any additional comments?

I was provided this audiobook at no charge by the author, publisher and/or narrator in exchange for an unbiased review via Audiobook Boom.

This is a series I am enjoying. It took me a minute to get into it but now that I am, I'm hooked!

Collection of short stories from The House of Crimson and Clover Series

I enjoyed the author's writing style. There are five short stories from the House is Crimson & Clover series. I wish I could have listened to the series before listening to these short stories. Hopefully they will be available on audible soon.

Flourish: talks about Anne Fontaine. Her mom dies and she decides to go visit her siblings. Her brother was something else.

Surrender: a sweet story about Oz & Ana which are childhood best friends that fall in love.

Shame: Wow. This was a horrible story of love & loss. So sad... I'm sure it is a good background story to understand Jonathan St Andrews and why he is the way he is.

Fire and Ice: Story with the twins Fleur & Remy. They are quite the trouble makers. One yields fire and the other ice. They are at a masquerade ball being very mischievous! Anne sets Remy straight!

Dark Blessing: Kelly is one of triplets and he has long believed in vampires. He meets Edith and together they try to solve this puzzle.

This short set books seems to bring insight to some of the characters from the Series.

The narrator did a pretty good job in bringing the story to life. The stories were written in multiple POV. I'm looking forward to listening/reading more books from this Author.

This audiobook was provided free of charge in exchange for my honest unbiased opinion.

Wonderful Writing and Excellent Narration

Would you try another book from Sarah M. Cradit and/or LC Kane?

Yes to both! It was fairly enjoyable. I was unaware that the book was a collection of shorts. I wish I could have listened to the whole stories,

What could Sarah M. Cradit have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Nothing.