According to Goodreads, I read thirteen published books this year (which continues my trend of recent years to disappointingly low numbers), but is at least a better showing than a book a month. However, I do realize Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story (even if the edition I read was bound standalone), so I feel obligated to admit those numbers have been padded, and as such are questionable. Of those thirteen twelve works, the three I thought deserving of five stars were Margarita Escobar's Under a Weeping Willow, Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor & Park, and Adam Silvera's The First to Die at the End.
A chilling collection of stories unravelling the consequences of longing, broken trust, and deceit.
When our own darkness is mirrored in multi-faceted characters, do we look away in disgust or find the humanity within them? In his debut short fiction collection, John Mavin has slyly exposed themes hidden deep below the surface with breathtaking potency, eloquence, and wit.