panA better title for this collection would be "Different Ways Men Screw Up." There was one story I was really enjoying, about a teenage girl, and then she happens upon a middle-aged man, and it was downhill from there. Great writing, but it was a chore getting to the end. #storyaday2023
pickThis was a mixed bag for me. Sometimes I found the metaphors too blatant, sometimes too obtuse. Sometimes the language sparkled in spite of the subject matter & sometimes it was so colloquial that it read as clumsy. It‘s an interesting collection in that it‘s both intellectual, & literally visceral (lots of blood, guts, shit, vomit & festering sores here, guys!). Ultimately, I think it‘s good, fresh writing... but I can‘t say I “enjoyed” it.
“Hey, does she still do that thing of leaving a bunch of snot rags all balled up in the bed? Man, I remember, she‘d have so much old Kleenex going, you‘d get in bed, and *crrrunch!* Make you want to puke. Still do that?”
#currentsitch #itme #sickday
“Been lovers? Who *said* that? It called up an image of those two at it beneath a flowering arbor while swans watched.” 😂
“I didn‘t like driving my car too far past the city limits, and I wasn‘t overly excited by the notion of a long ride with Barry Kramer. But I was heartened that Jane wanted us to get to a place where we could start doing favors for each other. It was her sort of olive branch, more wood than fruit. I told her okay.”
“They broke each other‘s hearts on schedule, always in the same indigo half hour of the morning.”
So much of this book is so ugly. But then there will be sentences like this. 💞
Chugging along, reading “Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned” for my Short Stories Book Club. I‘m on page 64/238. I‘ve read 2 out of the 9 stories. Our meeting is on Saturday. My interest level is... average. Also, I still have to wrap ALL of the presents. Should we start taking bets on whether I‘m actually going to finish or not? 🙈
“What a gentle, decent kind of life he‘d had with her. What a perfect pageant of disgrace he‘d cast himself in now.”
Wells Tower‘s adjective game is on-point.👌🏻
Speaking of points... bonus points to anyone who can #namethatimage!
Really diggin‘ these chapter illustrations. Wouldn‘t this make a cool tattoo?
(Also, I am 100% still in bed. Sunday, ftw.)
bailedAfter the first story I just couldn't. I picked this up on a recommendation from The Guardian as a "Book to give you hope" but I just can't see that, and I just can't see past the very tired male literary perspective and style.
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned: Stories | 
