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Jan 09, 2012

Janet rated it:

I do not often read short stories but after reading so many good reviews for Alice Munro's writing I at last decided to read her. And I was not disappointed - by her writing. But I am conflicted by the stories themselves. The stories are very intimate slices of life. It's as if across the span of someone's life, Munro reaches in and randomly grabs a moment when the character is at a crossroads. There is little introduction to each story, few details of what came before this moment. You get More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 01, 2010

Steve rated it:

I’m sure I’m not the first to point out how well Alice Munro does things like develop characters, convey a sense of place, and tell fully fleshed out stories, all in a fraction of the space it takes novelists. At the same time, she seems to leave pieces of the puzzle out, making us wonder what her bigger points may have been. We’re rarely bludgeoned by the obvious. I’m going to guess, though, that any signal distortion is a problem on my end, not hers.

The people in her stories are More...

9 comments like (4 people liked it)

Nov 11, 2009

Henry added it

"To me it seems that it was only then that I became female. I know that the matter was decided long before I was born and was plain to everybody else since he beginning of my life, but I believe that it was only at the moment when I decided to come back, when I gave up the fight against my mother (which must have been a fight for something like her total surrender) and when I chose survival over victory (death would have been victory), that I took on my female nature."

every More...

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Dec 17, 2009

Laura rated it:

what is there to say about alice munro? she's the best. she makes being an old lady seem completely bad ass. her writing is elegant, creepy, and deep in ways i probably haven't even fathomed. her endings are always doozies, and even when you think you are bored by the story...when it's over, you are just flattened.

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 12, 2008

Elvia rated it:

JUST READ THESE STORIES! They are like those times when you fall into unintended reverie and there's that one memory that sticks out without you being totally conscious of it. Well, she is conscious of it, and that is the stuff good short stories are made of.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 10, 2008

Elizabeth rated it:

one of her better short story collections and they are all pretty darn good. Explores issues of what makes people stay or go without beating you over the head with the issue. Of coruse that is kind of her signature, subtlety.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 13, 2007

Jennifer rated it:

One of my favorite books. I underlined, re-read, copied, re-read again. Eerie feelings like she had been inside my head, especially the story about the woman living below the annoying landlord. Fabulous. Read immediately.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 16, 2010

Lizzie rated it:

This book was a present from Meg, who told me she thought it was interesting to read short stories by an expert in the form. And it is, and I don't do it a lot.

Generally I really enjoyed this collection, and at times it felt revelatory. Then I began to wonder if I was hoodwinked, because sometimes I get hoodwinked, as the last clump of stories at the end is not that awesome, and I started to feel frowny-face.

But it's ok. I dog-eared a lot of pages that were so smart or lov More...

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Jun 02, 2008

Jon rated it:

Just read the first story. And, again, I'm blown away. It's almost 80 pages. Long for Munro (whom I refer to as Alice, as if she new me, like Jesus is suppossed to personally know everybody who prays to him.)

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 31, 2010

Jennifer rated it:

Haunting, open-ended, masterful stories. "Before the Change," about a woman who discovers her father is an illegal abortionist, left me breathless and stunned. People have said Munro's short stories are like novels, and "Before the Change" felt like listening to an entire symphony complete and clear in five minutes. People always mention "The Children Stay," and interestingly I put the story down and thought "That wasn't as good as I thought." And then More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 24, 2011

Beth rated it:

The perfect book to read on a sultry summer day in Prospect Park, lying on the grass with my daughter Zoe and her new baby Cleopatra --

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 11, 2011

Carol rated it:

Alice Munro is my favorite short-story writer, but this particular collection did not impress me much. The stories almost seemed like fragments pulled together after an author's death, which is strange because Munro is thankfully still alive. One of the stories even had a Updikeian feel, but I read it anyway, and liked it better than any actual Updike writing. The one thing that struck me about these stores was that most were set during summer holidays in waterfront cottages. So I do not have to More...

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Jan 06, 2011

Ris rated it:

It's been quite a while since I read Munro, and I don't remember being as unsettled (in a good way, I think) by her stories. She is so skilled that you are drawn into the depth and detail of her intimate, Canadian world(s) without knowing where you're heading, but trusting all the same that she is a sure guide. The thematic elements can be hard to decipher at times -- I think a testament to her patience -- but sometimes after a day (or more), an understanding (or another question) will arise a More...

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Aug 24, 2011

Daryl rated it:

Once again I find Munro to be sort of infuriatingly slow to read. It took me several weeks to get through this collection. Her prose is precise to the point at times almost of tedium, and yet her precision is also somehow effortless and right. So I find the stories simultaneously hard to get through and awfully engaging. It's obvious to me that she's a good writer, but I can't say that I find her writing inspiring. My favorite authors tend to be the ones who make me want to write my own work, an More...

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Aug 16, 2011

Jill rated it:

Wonderful collection of short stories. It's my second or third time reading them since they were first published in 1998. I am always so fascinated by the complexity of a story that she tells in 10 pages or so. Everything takes place in a small town....I assumed southern but Munro is from Ontario, Canada. Wonderful storyteller of what goes on in people's lives. Fascinating essay written about Munro by Cheryl Strayed who met Munro through a letter she wrote to/Munro wrote her, that changed S More...

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Sep 12, 2009

Dagny rated it:

While I still have something unread by Alice Munro I can look forward to it like a treat.
For whatever reason many of us have this enjoyment of absorbing stories. Mine started before I even knew how to read, when my grandmother, in the dark, the grown up world excluded outside the bedroom door, would tell me folk-tales of strange and dangerous happenings, trolls, elves, changelings and humans, usually engaged in a battle of wits. This was not a daily event because grandma lived in anothe More...

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Aug 12, 2007

Teddy rated it:

I read this with VIFF Friends book Club. Here's my review from Amazon.ca:

I am not usually a fan of short fiction, so when my book club decided we would read The Love of a Good Woman, I was skeptical. Yes, I've heard really great things about Alice Munro, but I like a book I can really "sink my teeth into". Alice Munro has changed my opinion.

Now I know why Alice Munro has been called the master of short story. Her artistry shines with broad stroke of her pen. O More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 27, 2009

Relyn rated it:

audiobook

I listened to this as an audiobook, but I don't think "reading" it would have changed my opinion. It was depressing. The book really had no redeeming characters, but was without the benefit of an interesting jolt of darkness. Just icky. Regular life is hard enough. Why read about someone's sad, yucky, regular life? I didn't even finish it. That's rare. Once I've invested hours in a book, I usually finish it. No interest. Absolutely none. How's that for More...

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Sep 03, 2008

Charity rated it:

I'd like to give this book 3.5 stars, but I can't, so it only gets three. I don't know about Alice Munro. Her stories are compelling, but... I can't put my finger on it. Perhaps I just didn't like the theme of this collection.

I'm glad I read it, and I enjoyed reading it, but it didn't really grab me, or speak to me, or make me think in the ways others have. I found myself forgetting what happened in the previous stories, and having to remind myself of the "theme" of the co More...

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Apr 23, 2008

Camie added it

When I first started making noises about wanting to be a writer (back in the days of late junior high), my dad bought me this book and The Moons of Jupiter by Alice Munro, and suggested I write short stories. There's still a few earnest annotations in Love of a Good Woman that are painfully bad, and in spite of having been written in pencil, I haven't erased yet. I'm a little too fond of them for that.

Alice Munro is one of the writers that I look to for inspiration, guidance, whateve More...

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Oct 04, 2011

Victor rated it:

I enjoy Alice Munro's short stories but did not like this collection as well as either the "Runaway" or the "Too Much Happiness" collections. The motivation of the women is too understated, making their actions seem precipitous or rash. Each woman's personality is repressed until the moment that she bursts out of her shell. I liked the "Jakarta" story the best, because of the slide between action that happened thirty years ago and action happening now.

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Jul 25, 2011

Anna rated it:

I love Alice Munro's stories. She has a way of making ordinary lives seem worthy of description, and of evoking them without being either boring or unnecessarily dramatic. These stories, as many of her stories tend to be, were mostly vaguely sad, but not depressing. They had a gloomier view of love than some of her other collections, but they also contained some of her most sympathetic characters.

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Jul 29, 2011

Hanna rated it:

After the first short story (the title story) I felt the same JOY as when reading Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. Like Alice would continue from where Virginia had to stop. I'm happy to have found this.
After all stories: I'm still enormously happy to have found this and will read all Munro I can get my hands on. The Woolf-feeling was there all the way through. And many more.

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Aug 29, 2011

Zac rated it:

Man this woman knows how to write! Perfectly-pitched tone, well-drawn characters, tense and heartfelt short stories. Every one was a small masterpiece in its own way. Many took place in decades past and the details of the selected time period always found a way to shine through. Munroe I look forward to continuing my tour through your catalog of stories.

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Feb 26, 2010

Eric rated it:

Ms. Munro in her finest form. The title story is one of the best I've read in a while, with at least two-three more others that are sublime. One of the perhaps surprising things about her stories is how juicy the plots are-- the characters are so rich but these are never just character studies; there is always something monumental at stake.

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Nov 21, 2007

Russell rated it:

In context, I read very few women authors. Especially women authors whose subject matter is the inner lives of women.

That being said, I managed to enjoy this collection of short stories.

In a few stories, I felt that she was able to capture the essence of what it is to be a WASP (that odd, quiet ethnic group that no one seems to write about anymore). Specifically, the obsession with class and sex that never goes mentioned outwardly and barely inwardly.

I was p More...

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Sep 24, 2011

Kate rated it:

Good story... good story... good story.... GREAT story! "My Mother's Dream"-- about a screaming baby who will not be comforted-- and especially not by her mother-- is fascinating and funny and just a little bit frightening.
The whole collection is a good read, and "My Mother's Dream" is a must-read.

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Feb 26, 2011

Alsy rated it:

Munro is a master storyteller, easily transitioning the voice of the personal narrator from one character to the next. She has the flawless talent of taking the reader on a emotional journey where reader adopts each character's thought, feelings and emotions as if they were real and tangible.

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Nov 23, 2008

Mark rated it:

I'd probably give it a 3.5 if I could. I am a big Alice Munro fan. I love how she writes about the lives of ordinary people so well. The structure of her stories is always interesting. This was not my favorite of her's that I have read but none were bad.

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Dec 19, 2008

Shane rated it:

Munro takes an oblique view to her short stories. On the surface they are quite common occurences in small towns, but the viewpoint taken and the interior motivations of her characters that she lays out with such deliberateness is refreshing - it makes an old story quite new again

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