meghan rose allen

I am always jealous when (Canadian) people win prizes for short stories, especially prizes to which I *may* have submitted. Sigh. I can’t even rightly be jealous because it isn’t like the stories in Faithful are bad. They are competent. Okay, they are more than competent. I can’t say that any of them will suddenly become my favourite short story in the world (Shout out to Guests of the Nation), and a few of the stories needed a bit more oomph (An Old Friend ends so quickly and not being a middle-aged, cheating man, I had trouble connecting with some of the motivations of Jake in the titular Faithful), but there’s a story about someone who realizes they’re never going to write a novel (Witness). I know that feeling (although I have written a novel); I know that feeling like I know my own skin.

Faithful are short stories that make me yearn to write short stories again.
Now if only I could come up with an idea (or maybe I’ll steal some of Karasik’s and make them my own; who knows).

Faithful by Daniel Karasik went on sale October 1, 2017.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I’m not a millennial — I think I’m Gen Y, maybe late Gen X (I remember Kurt Cobain dying), so these flow charts probably aren’t for me (also because I have already learned the IDGAF-answer to the question to whether or not to wear a bra, which is hell no), but because I am old and crochety now, I am going to say, if you’re going to make flow charts, put some damn arrows in, or make levels so that I know which box is next.

It’s kind of amusing, but I don’t really know it’s purpose. I guess you’d buy it as a cheer-me-up gift, or a cheer-you-up gift for a girl-friend? Maybe it’s an aspirational book to put ass-backwards on your bookshelf? Who knows. As I said, I’m old and crochety and need arrows in my flow charts otherwise I can’t be bothered.

The Best Damn Answers to Life’s Hardest Questions by Tess Koman went on sale September 4, 2018.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A pair of two Japanese novellas about, well, I guess about not being engaged in life, and having spiraled inwards, even when making connections to others. The first, a just-met pair stay at a love hotel for five days, then separate. The second, a wife lays in bed in her mouldy apartment, reading blogs online and thinking about her husband. The first novella takes place during Bush II years and it was like “Oh yeah, Bush. Lot’s of bad stuff happened then.” I’d forgotten about all that in the waves and waves of all the new bad stuff that’s happened in the meantime. The second is more unmoored in time, even within the story which sort of floats around the way my thoughts float around when I, too, can’t be bothered to put the effort in to get out of bed. Or like now, when it’s humid and I’m sleepy and I feel as detached from life as the characters I read about in The End of the Moment We Had.

It’s a very disorienting feeling after having read these stories; I’ve disassociated myself from all I suppose.

The End of the Moment We Had by Toshiki Okada went on sale September 4, 2018.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Oh my. There is a lot packed into this little book. I mean a lot. Two books, three books, worth of interactions and plots and conversations and reasons and fiction-thingies that make books books and not real life. We have a brother with anger issues. We have immigrant parents. We have random violence unrelated to the brother with anger issues. We have high school friends staying friends forever (which I guess happens. I still talk to, at best we’ll say 0.75 of a person of my high school friends, but I suppose there are other people who stay close to those they knew as teenagers. Me: I prefer to remove all reminders of adolescence, including, but not limited to, people, places, and things). We have weddings. We have break-ups. We have stalker-ish, suicidal sisters with power-of-attorney forms. We have a suitcase of a book with the zipper popping open and staying closed only with the help of a huge roll of duct tape.

Maybe all of everything in Be Ready for the Lightning happened somewhere to someone, because it has that feeling of truth being stranger/more fantastical than fiction. At a micro-level, each of the bits works, but Be Ready for the Lightning often feels like too much of a good thing. A black hole collapsing in on itself. I feel weighed down after reading.

Be Ready for the Lightning by Grace O’Connell went on sale June 6, 2017.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A sweet, predictable, read about a grieving girl running a laundromat. There’s an evil fat (literally) cat property developer wanting to buy the laundromat and kick out the family. Will the girl with the help of her ghostly friends save everything in time?

Spoiler: I said it was predictable, so yes, obviously they will. Everything works out in the end. I wish the real world were as ultimately karmic as here. Really, that’s what makes me saddest about the story — just how in the real world, being sweet and kind may not mean you win at the end of the day.

In any case, my nine year old read Sheets about thirty times in a row. For about a month, it was always the last thing opened on my reading app because she would just read it from start to finish again and again and again. I hope she absorbed some of the message and turns out to be sweet and kind too.

Sheets by Brenna Thummler went on sale August 28, 2018.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I read this on an airplane…

… which, I know, has seemingly nothing to do with the book in question, but it was a book I read, on an airplane, and being on an airplane (especially ones without any in-flight entertainment) are times where I feel sort of removed from reality, or in stasis. So I read Veil while in stasis and it feels that way when I think about it: I read about an experience removed from me (I am neither Muslim nor do I wear a head scarf) while I was removed from everything else.
It was like listening to a friend tell you about their experiences. It was soothing. It didn’t offer solutions or force opinions.

A friend. Talking to you on an airplane. Passing the time. How the veil may be liberating. How the veil may not be liberating. What it means to her.

Veil by Rafia Zakaria went on sale September 7, 2017.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

So it’s a collection of somewhat interwoven stories (MFA before MFA was even an MFA!) about the underside of Odessa, the petty crooks, the not-so-petty crooks, their hangers-on, their not-so-hangers-on. But reading it, I couldn’t help thinking I’d missed something, like I’d literally forgotten to read an introduction or something because while everything felt familiar, something was just a teensiest bit off. Maybe the translation didn’t work for me? Maybe I need more background in that specific time-and-place of Ukrainian/Russian history. It was good and I knew it was good, but I had to keep reminding myself as we went along.

I did appreciate the dark humour, even if I was missing something all the while.

Odessa Stories by Isaac Babel went on sale November 15, 2016.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Geoff: Is that book any good?

Me: I’ll bet you a million dollars she has an MFA.

Geoff: How can you tell that?

Me (looks in the About the author section): Yep! MFA!

Geoff: That doesn’t answer my question.

Me: What question?

Geoff: Is it any good?

So is it? Parts sure — the chapter set in the city with the rebels was so tautly written and great to read. But that whole thing reads exactly like my idea of a stereotypical I have an MFA and this is my first novel novel (I have no idea if my opinion is justified, since, perhaps, I read tonnes of novels with those two qualifications and don’t even realize it). What do I mean?

1. Every chapter is about/from the perspective of a different character.
2. Chapters change the point of view constantly (i.e. some chapters are second person singular (you), some chapters are third person singular (she), etc.
3. While each chapter is interlinked, they all have a stand-alone feel to them.
4. Catharsis is somewhat muted.

And so, it ends up being more like a bunch of short stories about a fictionalized account of the filming of Cannibal Holocaust. I’m not saying that this is bad, but it isn’t the most wonderful book I’ve ever read either. I think it was marketed as horror. I’m jaded, so I wasn’t that horrified. But, maybe I was supposed to be horrified. I don’t know. I need a new POV chapter/character to tell me what I’m supposed to feel.

We At Our Own by Kea Wilson went on sale September 6, 2016.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.