Book #22: Quid Pro Quo & Zachary Zombie and the Lost Boy

I like to review the short stories that I read, particularly if they're good, but as you know, I don't like to count them as books. As always, I read two short stories/small books to count them as one, as is the case with this review.


First up is Quid Pro Quo, a short story by Dan Dillard. In this story, there are two families struggling with illness. Louis is a child who suddenly develops life-threatening flu-like symptoms, and Laura is a middle-aged married woman who has been riddled with cancer. The families do not know each other, but they share a common determination to be healthy. Hearsay leads both families to a mysterious man named Steven, who is said to be a healer. Louis and Laura are both "healed" by Steven, but they soon learn that healing comes at a high cost.


This was a jarring, strange little tale that will really make you think. Louis and Laura both thought that the ability to live was all they wanted or needed. As it turns out, quality of life becomes more important than how long they survive. Steven says there is no up without down, no back without front, no dark without light, and so on. There's a cost for everything, and it's interesting to see what Louis and Laura give up for their health, and whether cheating fate was worth it in the long run. This definitely isn't a feel-good story, so don't pick up for a quaint sunny afternoon read. That being said, I really enjoyed it, even though it was kind of disturbing. Those kinds of stories are nice every once in a while, especially when it's just a short story. You can get it for free on Kindle here. 


4/5 Stars


Read on June 23, 2011

Next is Zachary Zombie and the Lost Boy: A Story for Demented Children. This is a short story by John H. Carroll, which really is intended for children -- demented or not, I think. I like zombies, and I admittedly have had a bit of Halloween fever lately (I wish it came more than once a year...), so I thought I would use this as the second part of my short story review. I am sad to say I was disappointed.


The story is about a kid named Tobais who gets lost in the woods. He comes across Zachary, a zombie who has actually retained his soul thanks to a witch's spell... So he's kind of part-zombie, part-human. Tobais asks Zachary to help him find his way home, apparently unscathed by the fact that Zachary is a zombie. So, they set out to make it back to the village. Meanwhile, for about a page or so, there's a snobby girl named Anise who longs to be rescued her from her perfectly comfortable lifestyle. Not really sure why that's important, but it's there. 


There's really not much going on in this story. It's got some silly, zany descriptions of zombies and their creepy friends, and it's kind of funny in a children's book sort of way. Still, I don't think there was a point. Even kids' books need to have a point. The last couple of paragraphs (in which a prince is introduced), while they do tie in to a previous scene in the story, completely do not belong at all. It sounds like the beginning of an entirely different story.


Maybe I don't read enough children's books and was expecting too much from this. It just wasn't very well-crafted. My kids in the summer program I teach wrote children's stories a couple of weeks ago, and even they understood there needed to be a story arc and a finite ending. Oh, well. This was also free on Kindle, and you can see more about it here.


1/5 stars


Read from June 24, 2001 to June 25, 2011


--C

Book #10: As Quiet As They Come

(Just like last time I read short stories, I'm counting 2 short stories as one book. This + La Belle et la Bête = 1 book.)

This is a free short story on Kindle that I downloaded a long time ago. I finally got around to reading it, and I'm glad that I did. It is one story from a collection of stories by Angie Chau about Vietnamese immigrants who have escaped the Vietcong in the 1970s.

This particular story is about the very quiet, reserved Viet, and his family. His wife, Huong, was a former model in the Vietnam. The couple has two young daughters, who have quickly and gracefully adapted to life in America.

Although he was a professor in Vietnam, he has a quiet life in America as a postal worker. The reader learns early that although he is soft-spoken and shy, Viet once killed a man. The story takes you back to that moment, and it becomes clear that when his family is threatened, Viet will stop at nothing to stop the threat. Soon, Viet finds himself pushed to the verge of losing control once again.

This is very short, but it packs a very large punch. Chau is talented at putting a lot of emotion into very few words. Her writing is beautiful, and I wished this had been a full-length novel. I want to read the other short stories in this collection soon.

4/5 stars

Read from February 28, 2011 to March 1, 2011

--C

Book # 9.5: La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast)

Beauty and the Beast was one of my favorite Disney movies as a kid (although nothing could ever possibly beat Aladdin), and I recently got to see the Broadway version when the touring cast came through Huntsville. I saw it when I was browsing the classic Kindle books, so I thought I'd read it to see how it compared to the story I know so well.

As is generally the case with Disney movies, they seemed to have taken a very loose idea from the original work and crafted into something kids would like. I don't really have a problem with the way Disney does things, for the most part (see my post on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland). I know they don't stick very closely to the literature or historical themes they choose, but at the very least, they might inspire kids to go back and read the originals just to compare them to the movies they love. Case in point: me.

In Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont's La Belle et la Bête, a formerly rich merchant who has become poor stumbles upon a beast's castle. The beast insists that the merchant offer one of his daughters (he has three) in return for his freedom and a trunk full of money. His daughter, nicknamed Beauty, goes to take her father's place in the castle, and she finds that the beast has graciously prepared for her arrival, setting up an apartment for her and coming to dine and chat with her daily. The Beast asks Beauty numerous times to marry him, but she refuses. She longs to see her father again, and the Beast allows her to leave when she promises to return in one week. When she goes home to visit her family, she finds that her sisters have each married handsome, yet dull and uncaring men. She realizes that she loves the Beast regardless of his appearance. She comes back to the castle to find the Beast dying, but when she tells him that she has returned because she wants to marry him, the Beast is revived and turns into a handsome and brilliant prince. Yay.

So... No crazy inventor father for Belle. No Gaston (my favorite character) fighting for Belle's affection. No household items brought to life. No rose quickly losing petals (though the Beast does mention his affinity for roses). No throng of townspeople storming the castle. No wonderfully choreographed showtunes... But all in all, still a nice story. A bit simple, but nice. Definitely worth the hour it will take you to read it.

3/5 stars

Read on February 28, 2011

--C

Book #32: Diamond as Big as the Ritz & Other Stories

While browsing the bookshelf for my next victim, I ran across this collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald short stories. Since I just got married at the Ritz Theatre, I took it as a sign. (Yes, that's about how complicated my selection system is these days.)

I like Fitzgerald. I enjoyed The Great Gatsby the second time around, and I loved his short stories that I read in my college English classes. I'm a big fan of 1920s-era history, so his niche is clearly right up my alley. Here's the thing about Fitzgerald, though: he is much, much better in small doses. The lifestyle at the center of his writing is so exhausting. I can only deal with so many pages full of some useless rich party guy whining about that one chick who didn't dance with him.

OK, I'm over-simplifying, but if you've read enough Fitzgerald, I think you catch my drift. It's fun and whimsical to read one short story full of lavish parties and fretting over the length of your evening gloves. Two or three (or five) of such stories in a row is just annoying. I mean, don't these people DO anything? Anything useful? Aren't there Model Ts to assemble or something? Dang.

Anyway, I do have good things to say. It's clear why "Diamond as Big as the Ritz" is the collection's namesake. It was the best short story by a mile. It was what Fitzgerald described as one of his "fantasy" short stories, seeing as how it's full of impossibilities. It's a great little story about a young man who visits the family of a rich classmate who lives atop a single diamond that is literally the size of the Ritz Carlton. That family has a lot of stranger things in their lives, as it turns out. It's a fabulously written story with a twist that comes from nowhere and even more bizarre ending.

My other two favorites in this collection were "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" (the perfect 1920s-era Mean Girls-esque chick-gets-her-revenge story, I think) and "May Day" (the epitome of the exhausting lifestyle I was talking about -- during the historic May Day riots of 1919, some rich folks are too caught up in their own petty business to care).

The others were mediocre at best: "The Ice Palace" (Southern girl moves to the north, whines about it) and "The Offshore Pirate" (spoiled girl is sailing to Florida, gets hijacked by "pirates," falls in "love" with the captain) and "Jelly Bean" ("aw shucks" sort of guy pines over a swanky girl).

There are some very, very repetitive themes here. That's his thing, though, so whatever. I have a feeling I'd have much better things to say about these stories if I'd read, say, one per month instead of all five of them in a couple of days. It truly all boils down to the fact that I get really frustrated with the uselessness of these characters when I'm overloaded with it. It's kind of the same reason I don't read books in a series in succession. I don't want to get tired of the characters or the plot, so I split it up over time. Might have been a good choice here, too.

3/5 stars

Read from December 1, 2010 to December 3, 2010

--C