Customer Reviews

Who I Was Supposed To Be

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book came with high recommendations and expectations but for me the book failed to live up to them. The characters are inventive and memorable but their treatment falls short and the stories repeatedly end on a dissatisfying note. I agree with the Amazon review that her characters' promise and development seems to stall out of some kind of self conscious regard for academic critique and conflict, etc. (I'm not an academic, but you can feel their eyes on the text.) I wish she'd just let it rip. I also think the writing suffers from a lack of a clear voice; the voice often seem contrived and forced and in some instances just competely derails the story. The good part is the characters themselves, who are memorable despite their author's too-often shallow treatment.

This is an amazing book, almost unnerving in its ability to capture the way people really think and act in their weirdest, darkest, and most uncensored moments - but also in their best moments. Tolstoy said that each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, and Perabo's actually like a modern Tolstoy in her sketches of the details of family life (and friendship too), the way it shocks you and the way it doesn't surprise you at all.

I read Susan Perabo's collection after being her student over Christmas. Wow.
These stories amaze me. Well written, she does so well what she has taught her own students. The gears in my head turned, and I finally understood all those things she wrote on my stories or tried to explain in class.
I love her characters. The data processing woman with the Diana dress. The pot smoking music teacher father. The woman whose baby just died. The actor whose marriage is ending so he invites a klepto father to stay with him. On and on they go, so confused, so much in pain, but she makes their lives and situations funny. It's a bittersweet pain, but Perabo has one of the most original ways of communicating pain I've seen since the writers she told us to read.
I still can't get out of my mind the one called "Explaining Death to the dog". The pain the woman feels when showing the dog the book of Time photos or showing her the dead animal, wow. I read it three times in a row the first night I read it. I am still in awe of it.
As she told my class so many times, "Show, don't tell."
Perabo shows. I can't believe I was lucky enough to have classes with her. I just wish I read these sooner.

Barring a very few exceptions, the stories presented here are top-notch. I finished this book in half a day, and wanted more when I ran out of stories. I would love to see more stories about the characters here!

I found this collection by accident and didn't know what to expect. Short stories can be so good, or so bad. These stories are very good, and consistently good. These are stories of people searching for something missing in their lives, well told stories with humor and heart. Enjoy this collection.

Reading Susan Perabo's short stories I was moved, uplifted to laughter, and stung by the recognition of deep emotional experiences. I was amazed to have old pleasures and guilts resurface through the thoughts and experiences of people whose lives are so utterly unlike mine. Each short story invites a long conversation to express the pleasure and pain and plentiful humor. For example, Perabo's characters in "Thick as Thieves" convey so much in one SHORT story about people, their regrets, and possibilities while still being so exceedingly funny. I will buy ten more copies of the book and send them to the people most likely to sit down and discuss them with me, ASAP.

Should be 'nuf said -- but I want to add that the author's voice is completely true! (i think this a book for older people -- ie, over 40 -- who understand about disappointment, and transformation). What a read!

We spent a week in the woods with our children and grandchildren and I discovered in the nearby library this enchanting book of short stories. The first one that I read was "Retirement," because we are both retired grandparents. What a twist to discover that it was a comedy yet a reality check for Batman's butler. I laughed my way to the end, which I still have yet to discover. But that is what retirement is all about anyway.

This little book became a vacation to me within my family vacation. When the reality of family problems overwhelmed me, I sought refuge in Susan's family tales. Then nothing really could make me feel upset. Susan takes the everyday ordinary people of today and gives them a new dimension under bizarre experiences such as: an addictive mother who gambles her lifesavings on the lottery; lost loves and lovers; a young couple with unfulfilled material dreams; a burglaring father and Holywood son reunion; a pyromaniac daughter with her adulterous mother and meek stepfather; a brutal attack on a father in front of his son: the accidental death of a fellow student by two young friends; the emergence of clandestine sex between neighboring adolescents. You can enjoy the situation and revel in the unique mannerisms of her characters. She weaves her light stories in a charming and timely style that kept me curious to sample each new tale.

I came upon this purely by accident, but wasn't disappointed. I loved how each story was a completely different theme. I prefer author's that go outside the box, and Perabo does that!

Perabo's new collection of short stories is a revelation. I'm normally put off by stories: too long, too short, too pretentious, too what-have-you. However, I succumbed to these bite-sized nuggets of angst, humor and shocking surprise. Perabo can say a lot in just a few well-chosen words: peculiarities and passions come to sharp, quirky life in one tale after another. It's like a bag of chips on paper: you'll have another, and another, and (yum!) another....and be left wanting more at the end. Don't miss this wonderful book.