Jaime Clarke

Teenagers

First off reading this book was very difficult for me. My brain kept seeing just one long run on sentence, and it kept trying to edit the entire thing. But once I got the brain to stop edit mode I was able to read the story and did enjoy it.

*I won a copy of this book for free*

I thought the story concept sounded interesting: boy falls in love, girl starts pulling away, boy will do anything to keep her affection, including stalking his girlfriend's favorite author and eventually taking on his persona. However, the book really didn't hold my interest after Charlie meets Vernon Downs; I found it kind of depressing.

Enjoyed the Chuck Hogan, Parker, Joyce Carol Oates, Hannah Tinti, Lehane, Barnes, Harrar, most of the stories, actually. Gave me a couple leads to follow up on (hadn't read anything by Kenneth Abel before), and I think that's one of the main jobs of a short story collection.