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Sep 30, 2007

Jessica rated it:

I can't remember which of her books it is, I think it's this one, in which a character observes: "This Danish is too Sweetish for me to Finnish!"

If you don't like that, you probably wouldn't like Lorrie Moore much.

And if you don't like Lorrie Moore, I probably wouldn't really like you.

0 comments like (11 people liked it)

Oct 19, 2009

Misha rated it:

I'm having a hard time finding something to say about this collection except that I loved it. I'll soon be picking up Like Life, I think, as well as trying to learn more about Moore herself. I'm curious to know how autobiographical her writing is, because the emotions in each story just ring so true. Of course, that's what a good writer does -- taps into the commonality of human experience and shows us that we are not alone.

I really enjoyed the way Moore played with tense and point More...

4 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Jodi rated it:

You pick up Lorrie Moore’s collection of short stories called Self-Help because you’ve always admired her writing. Plus, your own writing is often compared to hers. Not because you are a master of the form, like Moore, but more because your short stories are peppered with a sort of sad and self-deprecating humor.

What you love about reading short story collections over short story anthologies is that you can pick up the threads that move throughout the stories. Moore has a thing for o More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Apr 12, 2008

Kristopher rated it:

Years ago I read Lorrie Moore's excellent Who Will Run the Frog Hospital for a grad school class (on memoirs?) and I have been a fan ever since. Every so often I will run across one of her essays or stories and find myself in stitches, although her humor almost always comes with a healthy dose of irony or solemnity to keep it from being a pure laugh fest. This semester I began my Creative Writing course with an out loud, round-the-class, reading of an essay (which turns out to be from Self- More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 20, 2008

Steven rated it:

This collection still seems as innovative and inventive as it did when I first read it in ’85. Her “How to…” stories had such a spark of originality about them that stylistically they couldn’t be copied. Second person point of view feels fresh again. Of course it’s not just the POV. She combines that with a unique syntax that makes ordinary words fresh. And the ironic and sarcastic humor, a loose mask for an incredible bitterness, a bitterness that really only comes out in the humor. In her late More...

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Jul 04, 2010

Wanda rated it:

“Self-Help" is an uneven collection of short stories I acquired this collection of short stories from a member of one of my book clubs and read them on a few lazy afternoons at the pool. They are musings on relationships that started off with a bang with the very funny opening piece entitled: "How to Be an Other Woman." Other woman” is the opening piece and an exceptional little short story. It is quite funny and Moore has a way of detaching herself from the characters and create More...

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Dec 18, 2009

Suzanne rated it:

Read all but the last story... maybe my expectations were a little high. I've been wanting to read it ever since my friend Terry recommended it. Gawd. That was like six years ago.

And I did like the way she showed us how to use "you." The second person is so often debated in writing workshops. But on the whole, this 80s collection is probably just a few years ahead of my time. "How to Be an Other Woman" makes for a strong start: "Meet in expensive beig More...

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Oct 26, 2009

Sarah rated it:

This has to be one of the funniest books I've ever read. Whenever I think about which pieces to foist on my imaginary classroom of writing students, "How to Be A Writer" is the first piece that pops into mind. Here's the first paragraph of my favorite story. (I think you'll be intrigued enough from just that much):

How To Be A Writer, Or, Have You Earned This Cliche?
First, try to be something, anything, else. A movie star/astronaut. A movie star/ missionary. A movie s More...

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Sep 11, 2009

Jessica rated it:

The blurbs and reviews on this one praised its author's sense of humor and great writing style, but I should've paid more attention to the mentions of her ability to pick out the poignant, heartbreaking moments we all share--apparently, that means parents' divorce, bad relationships, and general inability to make good choices. Yes, she's very good at description, and can turn a nice phrase. "How to Be an Other Woman" caught me with evocative imagery and a cynical but true take on what More...

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May 23, 2010

Tung rated it:

This book is a collection of short stories -- all about broken relationships between men and women, with half of these stories creatively written in second-person narratives, like typical self-help books. One story is about a mistress dealing with her mixed emotions about being a mistress; another is about a woman who suspects her musically-talented husband is having an affair; another is about a woman who decides to end her life before her cancer does, and the effect that the announcement of he More...

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Jan 11, 2009

Alb rated it:

After reading this collection of Lorrie Moore stories, you can see why so many writers frequently copy her style. For one thing she makes it look so easy. Her prose is so perfectly paced and all those tough things like character development, plot, and setting just seem to flow effortlessly and logically out of the story. "Look" you say to yourself, "if she can create a beautiful story peppered with puns and thieving wives, why can't I?" And then you try and then you see why y More...

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Dec 15, 2011

Peggy rated it:

I think the last story, "To Fill" is absolutely devastating. I knew it would be which is why I had to put the story aside midway because I knew I needed to read it only when I could stand hitting bottom with this remarkable character Riva. I only brought myself to finish today because I'm getting reminders from the library. I don't know why I hadn't read this book previously. I've been working backwards from "The Gate at the Top of the Stairs." I read "Anagrams" in More...

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Nov 08, 2009

g rated it:

A quick read. I liked the first few stories best, but it may be because the later ones seemed to reiterate the early ones: there is not a lot of range in this collection, and the tone and style got old. There are some gems in here, though: reading "How," a story about a woman falling out of love, was an uncomfortable and devastatingly familiar experience. The following passage slayed me:

Pace around the kitchen and say that you are unhappy.

But I love you, he will say i

More...

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Jun 26, 2010

Paul rated it:

Lorrie Moore will make you laugh, break your heart, make you depressed, summon sympathy you didn't know you were capable of, and make you a character in every story in this collection.

In recognition of the book's title, most of the stories in Self-Help are written in second person. It is very rare that an entirely second person story accomplishes the author's intent, that is, to make the reader a part of the story. As if it is happening to you, you, you. Moore, however knocks it out More...

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Sep 27, 2010

Meghan rated it:

I didn't realize until about halfway through it that this was her first collection, and then it all made sense! It all made sense, and three stars is probably more accurate but there are portions of some of these stories that just knock it out of the park so far it's not fair for me to round down. It just isn't.

Also I was reading this and someone said to me "oh...I read one of her stories...I don't think she's really for me" and I asked this person why and neither of us real More...

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Jun 15, 2010

Jessica rated it:

This book is so beautiful I can't even stand it.

Choice quotes:

"Cold men destroy women," my mother wrote me years later. "They woo them with something personable that they bring out for show, something annexed to their souls like a fake greenhouse, lead you in, and you think you see life and vitality and sun and greenness, and then when you love them, they lead you out into their real soul, a drafty, cavernous, empty ballroom, inexorably arched and vaulted a More...

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May 25, 2009

Emalie rated it:

This collection of short stories, like all of Moore’s work, is beautiful in it’s hidden details of everyday life. It’s almost as if you are envious of the world she has created although it is so obviously far from fantasy. In Self-Help Moore models each story after a ‘How-To’, i.e. ‘How to Be the Other Woman’ and ‘How to Talk to Your Mother’. This is an encouraging and perfect example of using the second person point of view effectively and provocatively, and is fantastically impressive being More...

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Jun 09, 2011

Joanna rated it:

Lorrie Moore is a gifted writer. Her humor and insight into the human condition make each of these stories a compelling and worthwhile read. Her themes of infidelity, terminal illness, and the complicated depths of human relationships resonate throughout the collection.

My only criticism is that many of these stories share so many similar elements that you often feel like you are not getting as many separate and distinct stories as the Table of Contents promised - a few feel like th More...

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Aug 24, 2009

Megan rated it:

I'm not usually the type to review before finishing, but I gotta say about this one: it's gonna be good. The first story is called "How to be an Other Woman," which of course is a fantastic title. And, get this, the story is in the second person, people. (Julie Orringer did this to fantastic effect in "Note to Sixth Grade Self," but now I know where she got the idea.) In describing the strange and awkward first steps of initiating an affair with a married man, our narrato More...

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Aug 01, 2010

Meg rated it:

First of all, I should have given this book 4 1/2 stars... C'mon, Goodreads! Start allowing half stars! Anyway, "Self-Help" was really good. Really, really good. I love when I casually pick up a book at the bookstore, don't know what to expect, and then the next day I am completely engrossed in its pages. This is what happened with Moore's book.

Moore is such a fantastic, clever, heartbreaking wordsmith. I wish "moore" (sorry) people would read her. And ma More...

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Aug 19, 2010

Steve rated it:

Lots of great things about this book. At times, I was laughing out loud which rarely happens to me when I read literary fiction or any book for that matter. Interestingly, she uses the second person 'you' in most of the stories which would seem like it would be tiresome, but it's not. As I read along, the 'you's sounded strangely more like 'I's. Also, she swims through scenes fairly quickly unlike other authors who might stick to one single scene for ten or more pages. The effect is wonderful be More...

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Oct 25, 2011

Tristan rated it:

This book was a lyrical masterpiece of interconnecting words, ideas, meanings, and emotions. It was the cat's pajamas, if the cat had just recently broken up with her boyfriend and was staying at home and watching old Ingrid Bergman movies, getting over it by darkly observing the world and making the saddest jokes a cat will ever say. That is an example of an overextended metaphor, and is not that accurate in describing the amazing, heartbreaking soulfulness that is this book.

It's fu More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 09, 2007

Amber rated it:

Every single short story I wrote in my undergrad creative writing workshops was a ripoff of Lorrie Moore in some way. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 16, 2009

R. rated it:

Lorrie? Lorrie..? If you can get here by Wednesday, we can curl up and watch The Five Lives of Criss Angel. He'll be walking through a field of landmines. He calls this, "Death Field". During the commercials I will do what I can to explain his previous trick, entitled "White Death". Angel was buried alive under a ton of Californian mountain snow (no, that's not code for cocaine). He became a snow Angel! Lorrie? Gosh. Heck. We don't even have to watch television. Just reel m More...

10 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 15, 2010

Esther rated it:

Moore's aptitude for wordplay makes me want to buy a book of quotations from Oscar Wilde/Ambrose Bierce/Dorothy Parker and memorize it so I too can be SO DAMN WITTY. Unfortunately that wouldn't work out for me. The reason her stories are so compelling is that her turns of phrases are so obviously her own-- strikingly original and hilarious. I'd be tempted to eye-roll her stories and claim the surfeit of puns keeps the focus on the surface meaning of her words or dismiss her works as frothy if sh More...

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Nov 02, 2011

Uzma rated it:

This was depressing...and sad...and funny. To Fill was a great story to end on. probably my favorite and I remember it the best because it was at the end. Actually, looking back at them, they were all pretty good/heartfelt. Lorrie Moore can put you inside the head of her characters more, at least for me, than any other author I have read. You really feel what they are feeling and understand their insanity. Even though their lives are sad, half the time I'm reminding myself that some of these thi More...

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Oct 29, 2011

Black Elephants rated it:

A teacher recommended reading Lorrie Moore, and I chose this book because it was considered by reviewers and readers to be "very funny."

Um...no? Moore is an adept writer, and I enjoyed the stories. But the truth is that they're very, very sad stories about miscommunication, loss, betrayal and disappointment. I think I chuckled once or twice, but the misleading reviews really had me confused.

Otherwise, I liked how Moore played with structure—especially in "How More...

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Jan 25, 2012

Peter rated it:

You’ve read stories written in the second person before, but you haven’t read them like this. Lorrie Moore’s debut story collection, Self-Help, explores the lonely struggles and losses of women learning how to have affairs, how to end their lives, how to handle the affairs and deaths of husbands and mothers—these are the stories of those who cannot help themselves. Published in 1985, this innovative collection was the author’s (nearly) unchanged Master’s thesis, a slender volume that is tightly More...

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Mar 23, 2010

Kristina rated it:

I really enjoyed the first stories of the book, especially. And I enjoyed the writing. Moore has a beautiful, melancholy way of writing and her descriptions are amazing. However, I got annoyed with the repeated character types (distant husband who sings, daughter who has to take care of her crazy mother). And the last story really pissed me off, it annoyed me so bad. The first story, about how to have an affair, was wonderful and really showed how awful they are. So over all, I don't regret the More...

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Mar 02, 2008

Matt rated it:

Haven fallen in love with Anagrams, I was quite eager to read this Self-Help. Many consider it to be Moore's best work - it's certainly her best-known - so I had pretty high expectations. Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed - I found it neither as consistent nor as affecting as Anagrams.

The book is at it's best when it stuck close to what made Anagrams so fantastic - stories of people who find themselves stuck in lives very different from what they had originally imagined for More...

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