These stories were beautiful and tragic without cliche. As a reader of the Weekly World News in my youth, I appreciated the tenderness with which Butler treated his characters inside their exceptional storylines. And as a reader of too many established adult male authors, I enjoyed the way he treated his female characters, and the way he made them human without at all objectifying them. I also appreciated the structure of the book, with the first and final stories as bookends to the rest. These, also, were my favorites, as they were good, natural, and immersive as far as historical fiction goes. ( )

The stories were interesting, but they tended to ramble without having a real conclusion or point. ( )

Conceptually compelling, but too much of a literal retelling of those tabloid headlines. I was hoping for a more subtle, ironic treatment of those sensationalist stories. I'm sure this was an experimental literary achievement in its time, especially from Butler. ( )

I really enjoyed the strangeness of all of these stories. I love stories that blend literary fiction with science fiction and the fantastic, and these stories do exactly that. As the title suggests, the book reads like an intimate glance into the lives of the people you read about in the Weekly World News. ( )