Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #353610 in Books
• Published on: 1999-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Customer Reviews

One of the Best Books this Literature Major has ever Read
After reading through the stories in this collection over three times, I have to say that Aimee Bender is one of the best new writers I've read in years. Her stories are language-driven, impacted with brilliant images and NEW ways of describing emotions and situations that are universal. Perhaps this is why some commentators have declared that she is only out for the outlandish and bizarre, and hasn't spent a day in the real world. It's because she's not going the old, well-traveled route to show us life in all its darkness and glory. Also, any slightly savvy reader would see that she's working with form and structure, adopting the speed and economy and shocking language of fairy tales and applying it to tell modern stories. Some reviewers have said that her characters aren't connected to the world or even to their own selves, as though this is something Ms. Bender doesn't realize. They seem to see this as a weakness of hers. Perhaps they've failed to realize that Bender's characters being disconnected from society and their own selves is her point. And a poignant one, too. She's awesome. I'll re-read these stories for the rest of my life.

One of the worst this literature major has ever read!
I read the book for a class in modern american short story. As a graduating senior, I was appalled at the writing,(too simplistic), and the subject matter was assuredly pushing the envelope. She makes the reader's reach for the meanings and the subjects. In today's society, art is testing the limits, but this so called work of art by Bender is not only pushing the envelope, it is burning it. She seems to have incestuous as well as homo erotic writings mixed in with ideas and stories that do not flow together. There is no rhyme or reason and the concept that a girl could think her "passions" had flamed when she was being burned to a crisp by the flames from vanilla scented candles is ridiculous. The character are detached from each other as well as from their own selves. She is charateristically testing to see how far she can go as a writer and I have yet to determine what her "shock value" is.

Highly readable, but too gimmicky
Bender is afflicted by a syndrome affecting too many young authors: a compulsion to go over the top for no reason more apparent than being described as "eccentrically original" and "outlandish" on jacket cover reviews. Sure, the writing is wacky and audacious, but some honesty is lost amidst all this attention-grabbing weirdness. The stories kept my attention, but failed to inspire.