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Jun 01, 2008

Rory rated it:

oh my god! this book is so irritatingly cutesy-angsty-hipster-overly-everything! the first story features an exclamation mark after each sentence! how does this shit get published without the editors retching all over the manuscripts?!

sorry. i hope you didn't like it.

8 comments like (9 people liked it)

Apr 07, 2008

Susannah rated it:

How hard is it to write stories about happy people? Hard. Crane took on the challenge with this book and did a fine and multitextured job. These stories are zany and sweet and funny. And I give Crane major props for continuing to define for herself what "story" can be, for refusing to squash her sensibility and style into any safe, prescribed form.

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Feb 15, 2008

Laura rated it:

As another reviewer here said, given this title of this book, you may be afraid that this book drips with so much irony that it will slip out of your hands as you read it. Don't be. Irony is there at times, but it's applied with a light hand, and Crane is about as funny and surefooted a writer as you'll find, without any of the arch, forced style that infects a lot of short story writers of her generation. And best of all, I'm damned if these stories don't actually give me some hope.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 27, 2008

Patrick rated it:

I think they front-loaded this Chicago native's collection with the really good stories, the rest are all kind of average. "My Life is Awesome! And Great!" only uses exclamation points and question marks to end sentences, another is about a woman from my hometown of Lombard, Il who is turned into a zombie after getting bit at JoAnn Fabrics and then stars on the reality show "Starting Over." That story also mentions the Container Store. Another good piece is just notes for More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 31, 2008

jess rated it:

I picked this up so I'd have some short stories to round out my 2008 reading list. It is adorable and dear in that This American Life sort of way (from WBEZ Chicago) and annoying and irrelevant in the same sort of way. There are moments I laughed & cheered - stories that overuse exclamation points, a woman turned into a zombie at the Jo-Anns Fabric Store, many reality tv show and internet references - including Livejournal's prominent role in one story. There were some drippy, dull, extra-earnes More...

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Dec 27, 2010

Anna rated it:

Most of the characters speak like your much more clever, sarcastic, yet oddly optimistic best friend. They may make stupid decisions and do the wrong things, but they're not stupid. The collection is clever and light; maybe slight but the writer is talented enough to make it seem refreshing that she doesn't try to more than what she is.

It's a very girlish collection of short stories, and very fun and funny. Her characters aren't afraid to admit they watch trashy reality shows, and t More...

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Dec 05, 2007

Jonathan rated it:

I like that Betsy changed it up so much in this new collection. There's a lot of genuine hilarity in here, and the last piece—a letter to a kid who might be adopted—is filled with warm-hearted anxiety and sincerity.

1 comment like

Feb 07, 2008

Andi rated it:

I love short stories, but this collection was hard for me to like. I found the style interesting, but my cold, black, cynical heart wants to make something ironic and underhanded of all the happiness.

0 comments like

Feb 15, 2008

Pia rated it:

Brave and funny meditations that start out with an engaging premise, a brilliant set up, and then plumb the depths, worries and hopes of the human heart.

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jun 04, 2008

Heidi rated it:

Jeezus Betsy Crane, you are so funny! Really it's kind of fantastic! Okay, more than kind of! I've discovered a love of exclamation!

0 comments like

Dec 27, 2009

Anna rated it:

Initially, I was a little disappointed in these stories. I was excpecting them to be laugh out loud funny in a David Sedaris kind of way. They weren't. But, they did end up being extremely quirky, up beat, and very amusing. Many of the them flirt with a faith in God that surprised me as well. I am still puzzling out how I feel how this aspect of the stories. The real gem for me came at the very end of the collection. "Promise" is a particularly charming promise to a woman's unbo More...

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May 19, 2009

Jasmine rated it:

This book is the Anti-The Littlest Hitler. It is full of absurdly happy people telling extremely weird stories, and pretending that they are happy stories. In fact the main difference between the two books occurs in pretense. Is the person pretending to be a good happy person or are they a miserable person who isn't paying any particular amount of attention.

I fell in love with this book within the first page. It was like Liz Prince. Love at first sight. Not to mention the doll on th More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 02, 2009

Saralibrarian rated it:

my review from the olympian:
This book is strange and hilarious. It is as funny and weird as its cover which features an almost obscenely friendly, googly-eyed statuette posed in front of the kind of red curtain that features prominently in Agent Cooper’s dreams (of TV’s Twin Peaks fame).
It’s an appropriate cover considering that many of the stories in this book actually feel a bit like dreams. Like dreams they vary pretty widely in terms of mood, tone, and subject matter but ther More...

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Feb 28, 2008

Anne rated it:

In her third collection, Elizabeth Crane explores through a range of edgy, fantastical stories what it means to be unironically happy...sometimes ironically, sometimes not. Each premise is boldly imaginative -- a zombie tries televised therapy; an entire town turns transparent, then gentrifies; the perfect guy not only leaves his girlfriend but encourages your stalker-like behavior; people get arrested for being happy, fired for being sincere. I applaud the author for managing to call our cyn More...

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Feb 03, 2008

Tripp rated it:

With a title like You Must be This Happy to Enter, you might expect bucket loads of bitter irony. This third collection of stories by Elizabeth Crane is actually filled with laugh out loud humor, strange turns of events and stories that look realistically at the world, while maintaining the belief that life is worth living.

These stories are some of the best I have read in years, and remind me of another favorite, Ted Chiang. Like Chiang, Crane sets up bizarre situations (a woman goes More...

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Jun 29, 2011

Amy rated it:

Clever little stories about relationships, consumerism, celebrity, and zombie crafts. Some of the stories read more like exercises in following an idea to its most logical yet absurd conclusion (such as selecting items for your banishment to a desert island) than actual narratives. And one story is about a baby that suddenly turns into Ethan Hawke but is still enough of a baby to need his diapers changed (I suspect this is probably true). If you thought Girl in the Flammable Skirt needed an anti More...

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May 18, 2011

Cortney rated it:

There's something brave about this collection I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe it's how these stories bounce around subjects that you aren't supposed to ever write about--a genuine belief in god, love between people that isn't fucked up, reality television, taking pleasure in clothes shopping, and the things everyone else is writing about badly (i.e. zombies). So there's that. Reading this book and enjoying the crap out of it is like telling grad school to go fuck itself, because these stor More...

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Dec 06, 2007

John rated it:

I'm just a little over halfway through this, and I'm already going to give it five stars. I've been glued to this on the G train. I want the G train to keep going so I can finish these stories before I have to read other things for my day job.

The title's perfectly apt: YOU MUST BE THIS HAPPY TO ENTER, with a happy bunny/precious moments creature staring at you from the cover, arms spread wide like a kid who can grasp the concepts of measurement to some basic degree. While these are More...

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Mar 05, 2011

Margaret rated it:

this is a really smart collection of short stories. about happiness. which is always such a slippery subject.

these stories are inventive, intelligent, slightly irreverent, and real. brilliantly executed. full of actual, complicated love. and with a unique and contemporary voice. toss in the stunningly universal pop culture references, and it's certainly worth a read.

it made me smile a lot while riding the train.

0 comments like

Jan 17, 2009

Alexis rated it:

This gets an extra star because I really liked Elizabeth Crane's two previous books, When the Messenger Is Hot and All This Heavenly Glory. But I don't know what happened here. She substituted E-Z absurdist story premises for thoughtful, talented, holy-shit-amazing writing and became a poor-man's Julia Slavin.

0 comments like

Dec 03, 2008

Maureen rated it:

I picked this up because it's written by a U of C creative writing instructor and it was great! She riffs on life in a reality television saturated society. Kind of like Truman Show meets Singles. She's very clever and I found the stories were perfect for reading on the commute.

0 comments like

Jul 28, 2011

Faythe added it

This book was not @ all what I thought it would be, so I was a bit disappointed. Full of very unpredictable short stories that will cause you to make a lot of funny faces like I did, I'm sure. :-) Some of the stories did have a message behind it that made me think.

0 comments like

Aug 24, 2009

Alice rated it:

love, love, LOVE Elizabeth Crane! She's a true original and this fantastical collection will leave you breathless... The last story, Promise, a show-stopper... Check out her other two collections, WHEN THE MESSENGER IS HOT and ALL THIS HEAVENLY GLORY!

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Dec 07, 2008

Cynthia rated it:

I love the author's weird and strange characters in this series of short stories. My favorite short story of the year comes from this book, "Betty the Zombie." Outrageous and fun. Quirky things happen to good people in these stories. Very funny.

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Nov 11, 2010

Caitlinleah rated it:

as always with elizabeth crane, some stories are better than others... but this collection has my FAVORITE short story of all time in it. it makes me want to be a mother. i remember reading it on an airplane home from my family and crying.

0 comments like

Apr 27, 2009

Molly rated it:

Elizabeth Crane is hilarious. She has an astonishing ability to grab an absurd concept and stretch it into the perfect amount of story -- Betty the Zombie and Promise are two of the best stories I've read this year.

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Jan 16, 2009

Lisa rated it:

Some of these stories irritated me! Like the one where every sentence ends in an exclamation mark! And all the references to reality TV shows!

Yet there is some redeeming depth behind the quirk in some of the stories. Bonus points for imagination.

0 comments like

Feb 19, 2008

Rachel rated it:

I've been a huge fan of Elizabeth Crane since When the Messenger is Hot. I appreciate the experimentation she does with the short story form -- it's like reading good performance art. It's exhilarating, weird, and daring, and above all, relentlessly contemporary.

This collection's best stories experiment with the completely mythical and the completely mundane (e.g., zombies and reality TV). Throughout, Crane has a devastatingly keen ear for modern language in all its hipster-ironic d More...

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Sep 29, 2008

gwen rated it:

I'm finished with the Elizabeth Crane trifecta now, and I can't wait for her to write another book. This one was markedly different from the previous two sets of stories -- more fantastical, less self-conscious, more varied, even funnier.

I did miss her old constant narrator-character, who only popped up occasionally (most notably in a story about drinking... I'm forgetting the name, but it should be taught in college writing classes) but I love the magical realism direction she's go More...

0 comments like

Jun 02, 2010

Marjorie added it

My brother just came back from Greece, where he apparently had some kind of life-changing Greek salad, and now he is sad every time he has to eat American produce. I just finished an A.S. Byatt anthology, and I could not bear to read more than four of the stories in this book. I'm not going to rate this one because I have no idea whether it was any good; all I know is that the level of hyper hipster ironic post-modernism here (a story consisting entirely of notes for a story, another that finis More...

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