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5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Collection, April 26, 2009
This review is from: Quarter Passed: Collected Works from Twentysomethings Around the World (Paperback)
Wonderful and warming collection of 20-somethings around the world. Nicely compiled with amateur works mixed in with some photographs.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating view of life as a twenty-something, June 22, 2009
This review is from: Quarter Passed: Collected Works from Twentysomethings Around the World (Paperback)
I've got an essay included in this compilation of stories, essays, poems and photographs by twenty-somethings from around the world (27 countries to be precise). So, of course, this review is biased. Take it for what it's worth.
The title of my essay is "Tainted" and the premise is that through my twenties I discovered the massive amounts of injustice in the world and it tainted what I would previously have seen as achievements. By the age of 23, for example, I was earning a six-figure salary and had my own office on the 18th floor of a Wall Street office tower, and I knew I didn't deserve a penny of it. I was weighed down by the thought that it was more than my Dad, the most conscientious person I know, had ever earned. It was more than billions of people who worked a hundred times harder than me would ever earn. It changed my view of the world. Whereas a lot of people become conscious of how the world works by being victims of injustice, for me it was through being a beneficiary of injustice. That's what the essay is about really.
To be honest, I don't think it's my best piece of work. It's heartfelt and contains some good ideas but I think I could have written it more coherently. Thankfully, however, a lot of other essays in the collection are much better. Brandon Miree, for example, achieved the amazing task of making me care about a story on the NFL (American football). It's about getting to be a player in the NFL but not quite making it - being a reserve, getting a run in the team, getting injured. About the fine margins between success and failure, particularly in a winner-takes-all environment like modern-day professional sport. Wade Forrest Wilson did a beautiful short piece about the stresses of being a cook in TGI Friday's, through the extended metaphor of boiling milk. Maya Bastian wrote movingly about the death of a friend and the sense of human fragility it gave her. Jayar Pacifico excavated the pain, guilt and awkwardness of trying to come out as a gay man when he already had a fiancee and a baby daughter. Dawn Ng kicked off the book with a terrific meditation on the meaning of home, the yearning to get away and the urge to go back again, as she described moving from Singapore to the USA. I loved the opening image of a five-year-old girl in Singapore drawing a crayon picture of a house based not on her own reality (a small flat on the 20th floor of a huge skyscraper) but on an ideal-type American house - a square with a triangle hat, a lawn and a dog.
I enjoyed reading this really disparate set of accounts from people around the world. American voices are most prevalent, as you'd expect from a book published there, but there's good representation from Europe, Africa, Australia, Fiji, etc etc. And of course America itself contains no shortage of different experiences. Each piece represents a strong individual perspective, and although the editors have grouped them into broad themes, there's no attempt to draw conclusions or make points. It's just a collection of different ideas on what the twenties meant for various people. Of course I'm biased, but I do think it's well worth a read.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A great summer read!, April 26, 2009
This review is from: Quarter Passed: Collected Works from Twentysomethings Around the World (Paperback)
if you've finished college and have been working a few years, you can relate to the emotions, thoughts and burdens these young writers have amassed over a quarter century. A fine collection of short stories, you can bring on your next vacation and share with friends. it makes me curious to see what new stories these writers will bring forward over the next decade.
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