Becoming Someone - Libroj.org

Neniu kovrilo — Becoming Someone (Paperback, 2018, Inspired Quill)

Poŝlibro, 340 paĝoj

Eldonita je 23-a de novembro 2018 de Inspired Quill.

ISBN:: 978-1-908600-77-6

(1 recenzo)

What shapes the way we see ourselves?

An administrator is forced into early retirement; a busy doctor needs a break. A girl discovers her sexuality; an older man explores a new direction for his. An estate agent seeks adventure beyond marriage; a photojournalist retreats from an overwhelming world. A woman reduces her carbon footprint; a woman embarks on a transatlantic affair. A widow refuses to let her past trauma become public property; another marks her husband’s passing in style.

Thought-provoking, playful and poignant, these 42 short stories address identity from different angles, examining the characters’ sense of self at various points in their lives. What does it mean to be a partner, parent, child, sibling, friend? How important is work, culture, race, religion, nationality, class? Does our body, sexuality, gender or age determine who we are?

Is identity a given or can we choose the someone we become?

1 eldono

Stephanie Jane recenzis Becoming Someone de Anne Goodwin

Brilliantly observed short stories

5 steloj

I enjoy reading short story collections, but it's rare for me to find one where I love every tale. Usually there are hits and misses so I was delighted to find that every single one of the forty-two stories in Becoming Someone is a hit!

Anne Goodwin has such an observant eye for human motivation and behaviour so all her characters came across to me as authentic and genuine - quite the achievement when the stories run such a wide gamut of human experience encompassing pretty much all ages, genders and relationships. Anne can also vividly portray scenes within a few sentences. Becoming Someone includes stories of varying lengths from vignettes that barely last a page to full tales that are several pages in length. I felt that they were each as long as they needed to be though. None were too abrupt or overstayed their welcome, and every one …

I enjoy reading short story collections, but it's rare for me to find one where I love every tale. Usually there are hits and misses so I was delighted to find that every single one of the forty-two stories in Becoming Someone is a hit!

Anne Goodwin has such an observant eye for human motivation and behaviour so all her characters came across to me as authentic and genuine - quite the achievement when the stories run such a wide gamut of human experience encompassing pretty much all ages, genders and relationships. Anne can also vividly portray scenes within a few sentences. Becoming Someone includes stories of varying lengths from vignettes that barely last a page to full tales that are several pages in length. I felt that they were each as long as they needed to be though. None were too abrupt or overstayed their welcome, and every one had a thought-provoking point to make.

I did find that I needed to frequently set this book aside in order to think over the story I had just read - and this is certainly not a criticism! Despite their brevity, the Becoming Someone stories cannot be considered light reads and this isn't a book to dash through. I enjoyed dipping into it, particularly of an evening, but long enough before sleep to allow sufficient pondering time!