16 November 2012

Review: Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical by Robert Shearman

Acquired October 2011
Read September 2012
Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical
by Robert Shearman

I should have known that a book of love stories by Rob Shearman would be depressing. These are very depressing.

But that's okay. It's the kind of pain that lets you know you're still alive, and you feel joy for feeling it, and maybe you even laugh inappropriately. The stories are bizarre and macabre and imaginative and quite frequently gross, but they always work. Even when a story about a woman having the world's most awkward affair is for some reason also about running over a strange and hideous creature in the middle of the night. Or especially.

I think my favorite was the one about the people who literally gave other people their hearts when they fell in love. Or maybe the one where it turns out they can measure exactly how much you love someone. Or the one where a woman is haunted by her ghost cat her entire life.

The one where Satan tries to make it as a novelist wasn't my favorite, but it was still good.

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