What do you think?
Rate this book
Bad Endings
Carleigh Baker likes to make light in the dark. Whether plumbing family ties, the end of a marriage, or death itself, she never lets go of the witty, the ironic, and perhaps most notably, the awkward. Despite the title, the resolution in these stories isn't always tragic, but it's often uncomfortable, unexpected, or just plain strange. Character digressions, bad decisions, and misconceptions abound.
While steadfastly local in her choice of setting, Baker's deep appreciation for nature takes a lot of these stories out of Vancouver and into the wild. Salmon and bees play reoccurring roles in these tales, as do rivers. Occasionally, characters blend with their animal counterparts, adding a touch of magic realism. Nature is a place of escape and attempted convalescence for characters suffering from urban burnout. Even if things get weird along the way, as Hunter S. Thompson said, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
In Bad Endings, Baker takes troubled characters to a moment of realization or self-revelation, but the results aren't always pretty.
While steadfastly local in her choice of setting, Baker's deep appreciation for nature takes a lot of these stories out of Vancouver and into the wild. Salmon and bees play reoccurring roles in these tales, as do rivers. Occasionally, characters blend with their animal counterparts, adding a touch of magic realism. Nature is a place of escape and attempted convalescence for characters suffering from urban burnout. Even if things get weird along the way, as Hunter S. Thompson said, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
In Bad Endings, Baker takes troubled characters to a moment of realization or self-revelation, but the results aren't always pretty.
160 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2017
8 people are currently reading
471 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews
July 28, 2019
I listened to the audiobook of Bad Endings while I completed mundane tasks at work. It was really interesting to hear all of these different endings—some of them sad, some of them strange, some unexpected. My favourite part of the book as a whole were all the references to Vancouver. It's a little surreal to hear a story being told about streets you walk down all the time. I almost felt like a side character in an alternate reality, haha.
October 21, 2017
Great writer. Great short stories. Some very odd endings to some of the stories! Some laughter among stories that often seem hopeless or depressing. Such realism however that makes each story so authentic. A lot of stories feature British Columbia. The author is of Metis/Icelandic ancestry who lives in Vancouver.
July 6, 2022
Carleigh Baker’s Bad Endings is thoroughly readable, and refreshingly of-the-proletariat. Although there may be an overseas backpacking holiday in these stories, we don’t meet anyone who qualifies exactly as a jetsetter. We meet characters who are struggling — occasionally middleclass, to be sure, but more often than not living precariously. And Baker writes like she’s been there: identities are drawn frankly, without coyness or sentimentality. She also has an ear for how people speak, grounded in the local: if you’ve spent time in British Columbia you might recognize, in Bad Endings, not only the places, but also the speech patterns. In BC – in Canada, really – there’s a habit to overlook the existence of class – but it’s there, and Baker nails it.
The publisher’s blurb points to the book’s “magic realism” – but don’t expect any conversational trees or cuttlefish mating with intravenous bags in underground tunnels. The magic in these stories is subtle. It might be a lizard falling from the sky, or a canoe nailed to a tree. It’s a weirdness not always easy to pin down as “magic”, but it does remind us that the everyday is frequently loaded with the strange, despite our tendency to dismiss it.
The publisher’s blurb points to the book’s “magic realism” – but don’t expect any conversational trees or cuttlefish mating with intravenous bags in underground tunnels. The magic in these stories is subtle. It might be a lizard falling from the sky, or a canoe nailed to a tree. It’s a weirdness not always easy to pin down as “magic”, but it does remind us that the everyday is frequently loaded with the strange, despite our tendency to dismiss it.
February 9, 2018
I very much enjoyed these stories, most of which were set in the Vancouver region and whose characters were shaped by the region and landscape in ways I could identify with. It was a rare treat to have my city brought to life so vividly and the characters could so easily have been the people sitting next to me on the bus or eating at the next table over. Many of the stories were very engaging. They were all very short. Often they would end quite abruptly, just when I felt like I was settling into the story. So you really have to keep on starting over and over. But the stories were very easy to slide into.
August 9, 2017
I loved these stories, written with such realism that I felt as though I were being offered a glimpse into the author’s secret lives. There is so little in fiction that’s this raw and honest, so few stories where characters are laid bare at their lowest points and, as in life, enjoy no pat, happy endings.
I often found myself identifying a little too closely with the mistakes Carleigh’s female characters make in regard to men. The dialogue is so masterfully done, providing insight into human weaknesses. Or when she reveals your own oddities through her characters, and you realize you aren’t the only one who suffers with guilt over taking a bath.
“I sat in the water until it was nearly cold, to make sure I got the most use of it.”
My favourite story was “Grey Water.” So many very cool perceptions, but the author never allows sentimentality to invade her stories. One of the characters’ realizations that still remains with me: “Maybe something both other-worldly and organic was reaching out to me, trying to give me a message, and I was slapping its hands away like an idiot. Something magic.”
I think the author is at her best when writing about our relationship to nature. It’s like opening a gift to come across introspections that are so artfully written. One character muses about her “. . . powerful and lifelong misconception that I am not a part of nature.” To my mind, this sentence is the uniting theme of these stories.
Carleigh Baker should be very proud of this collection, that it articulates what so many of us feel—the disconnection from our wild selves. I expect that Bad Endings will be on the award lists this coming fall.
I often found myself identifying a little too closely with the mistakes Carleigh’s female characters make in regard to men. The dialogue is so masterfully done, providing insight into human weaknesses. Or when she reveals your own oddities through her characters, and you realize you aren’t the only one who suffers with guilt over taking a bath.
“I sat in the water until it was nearly cold, to make sure I got the most use of it.”
My favourite story was “Grey Water.” So many very cool perceptions, but the author never allows sentimentality to invade her stories. One of the characters’ realizations that still remains with me: “Maybe something both other-worldly and organic was reaching out to me, trying to give me a message, and I was slapping its hands away like an idiot. Something magic.”
I think the author is at her best when writing about our relationship to nature. It’s like opening a gift to come across introspections that are so artfully written. One character muses about her “. . . powerful and lifelong misconception that I am not a part of nature.” To my mind, this sentence is the uniting theme of these stories.
Carleigh Baker should be very proud of this collection, that it articulates what so many of us feel—the disconnection from our wild selves. I expect that Bad Endings will be on the award lists this coming fall.
August 9, 2017
This turned out to be a good read for the plane - stories about people trying to find their way, whether they know it or not. People in transience. People struggling to move forward, or backward, or sideways. A surprising number of the stories were about beekeeping, which I was unsurprisingly very into.
May 23, 2017
What I liked about this book:
1) the cover art
2) the author's authentic voice and the readability of her words
3) the stories were well crafted,
4) the local flavor: being from BC much of it was so familiar
What I didn't like:
1)The dark and hopeless tone of many of the stories.
2) how depressed and hopeless I felt when reading some of the stories.
I must say I'm 66 and this author is likely several generations junior to me. She's a good writer, no doubt about it, but so darn sad. Perhaps there's truth in her narratives but I don't see the point ( aside from therapeutic value for the writer, if in fact these stories were based on her experiences) in writing such dark stories without any spark of light to be seen. Anyhow, just my take, I'm no English professor. It seems that Canadian authors fare better when their subject matter involves the seamier side of life; the more dysfunctions are contained in a piece the better. Anyhow, it just wasn't my cuppa tea.
1) the cover art
2) the author's authentic voice and the readability of her words
3) the stories were well crafted,
4) the local flavor: being from BC much of it was so familiar
What I didn't like:
1)The dark and hopeless tone of many of the stories.
2) how depressed and hopeless I felt when reading some of the stories.
I must say I'm 66 and this author is likely several generations junior to me. She's a good writer, no doubt about it, but so darn sad. Perhaps there's truth in her narratives but I don't see the point ( aside from therapeutic value for the writer, if in fact these stories were based on her experiences) in writing such dark stories without any spark of light to be seen. Anyhow, just my take, I'm no English professor. It seems that Canadian authors fare better when their subject matter involves the seamier side of life; the more dysfunctions are contained in a piece the better. Anyhow, it just wasn't my cuppa tea.
October 13, 2017
Halfway through this short story collection I found myself thinking there should definitely be bees on the cover of the book - the strongest imagery in each story by far. A moving, powerful collection. My first time reading Carleigh Baker, and not my last. I appreciated all the nuance she puts in developing her characters in these short stories as real women with real issues, navigating the modern world. Never thought I'd be an advocate for bad endings (or endings without a solid happy conclusion), but I think I've just been converted. Well deserved finalist of the Rogers Trust Fiction Prize.
September 19, 2017
What a great collection of stories! I got a Miranda July vibe from Baker's writing, but more focused on the goings-on of the story: wry, quick, detailed, delightful writing, propelled by odd and compelling characters. The first half of the collection is just back to back five-star stories. It doesn't quite hold up all the way through to the end of the collection, but I think that's common to most short story collections, and there are more than enough incredible stories in here for this to earn a spot on your shelf.
January 15, 2018
I really didn't know what to think about the first few stories and it was only when describing one of them to my 23 yo daughter that the penny dropped in my middle aged brain (who still remembers pennies in Canada?! lol).
The stories are almost banal in their simplicity but the complexity of the modern Canadian age for millennials is elegantly captured with concise and descriptive prose. I look forward to more of Ms. Baker's work.
The stories are almost banal in their simplicity but the complexity of the modern Canadian age for millennials is elegantly captured with concise and descriptive prose. I look forward to more of Ms. Baker's work.
November 4, 2018
These stories are well-written. They pull you quickly into a character’s situation and mindset. However I am still not a convert to short stories. The “endings” in this book are not “bad” so much as incomplete....I always want to know what’s going to happen next.
November 4, 2017
More like 3.75. Many stories are good, well written with a keen eye and detail, especially the ones on bee farming. Some of my faves were "Chins & Elbows" and "Shoe Shopping with the Poor Class" though some stories feel like they could've had more solid endings. Very enjoyable and a voice I'll be following.
February 16, 2018
Such a great book. Stories are engaging and make you wish the stories would move further into novel territory. If you like short stories with a resolution at the end...read this anyway and move out of your comfort zone.
August 8, 2018
An excellent collection of stories with a West coast feel and a "boom" moment at the end of each story. The stories had wide varieties of different casts of characters. I loved that there was a motif of bees running through the book. :)
July 12, 2019
The characters in this collection of short stories all have one thing in common: they are ordinary and flawed, and they could be me or you. Because Baker’s descriptions of their surroundings are detailed and masterful without ever slowing down the pace, reading the stories feels like eavesdropping on your neighbours. I’ve always wanted my superpower to be the invisibility cloak so I could do exactly what Baker allows me to do here, witness someone else’s ordinary life. Brilliant.
September 2, 2023
Interesting stories and characters. But the plots ended a bit too abruptly for me - right at or before the climax. As soon as the storyline started to pick up and introduce some complexity, it ended with no resolve. Knowing this made it hard to feel motivated to get through the book.
December 26, 2018
Probably the best short story collection I’ve read in a while. Smart, incisive, often funny, always beautiful. Can’t wait to read what Carleigh Baker publishes next!
September 14, 2018
"The floor was so highly polished I could see up my own skirt." from p46 "Shoe Shopping with the Cash Poor"
This is how I felt while reading Baker's smoothly written collection of short stories--simultaneously exposed (relatable reminders of my own bad endings) and voyeuristically driven to carry on reading impeccable prose about (Yeah!) imperfect people. These stories are splendidly uncheerful--my cuppa tea! It's not that they're hopeless. It's more that (like in real life) every serious decision has as many follow-up question marks as whatever led to that decision. The characters are relatable working class folks (BC local, often urban) with unusual jobs, obsessions, relatives and dissatisfactions. The bee facts are a bonus! Read Bad Endings!
Dear Carleigh, please please please write a follow-up story for the river-paddling couple in Moosehide!
This is how I felt while reading Baker's smoothly written collection of short stories--simultaneously exposed (relatable reminders of my own bad endings) and voyeuristically driven to carry on reading impeccable prose about (Yeah!) imperfect people. These stories are splendidly uncheerful--my cuppa tea! It's not that they're hopeless. It's more that (like in real life) every serious decision has as many follow-up question marks as whatever led to that decision. The characters are relatable working class folks (BC local, often urban) with unusual jobs, obsessions, relatives and dissatisfactions. The bee facts are a bonus! Read Bad Endings!
Dear Carleigh, please please please write a follow-up story for the river-paddling couple in Moosehide!
December 5, 2017
I recall one or two very long evenings at gatherings that had been optimistically announced as parties, during which every drink tasted more putrid than the one before it and each inebriated jerk I encountered was more tiresome and vapid than his predecessor. This book brought those memories unpleasantly to mind. In order for the endings to be bad, what came before needed to be a bit better, just for the sake of contrast. It wasn't.
Several of the stories involved bees. The bees have my sympathy having to put up with these people. I understand that the stories are a reflection of the author's life experiences. I'm sorry about that but I see no point in sharing her sad, chaotic life.
Several of the stories involved bees. The bees have my sympathy having to put up with these people. I understand that the stories are a reflection of the author's life experiences. I'm sorry about that but I see no point in sharing her sad, chaotic life.
July 19, 2018
This is a wonderful collection of stories. Crisp observations, rich characters, vivid descriptions and although I can't say there's a lot of "plot" these are the kind of stories where for me that doesn't matter. Things happen in ways that struck me as true to character and real.
I feel like I'm floundering around for words. But anyway. I really really liked this collection. Basically, what I said about half way through holds true: both dark and funny, flawed and real characters, great writing.
I feel like I'm floundering around for words. But anyway. I really really liked this collection. Basically, what I said about half way through holds true: both dark and funny, flawed and real characters, great writing.
October 6, 2018
I enjoyed the book. I feel like the book is actually about bees rather than bad endings.
The female characters were great. Something was off about the male characters, they just felt like images compared to the well roundedness of the female characters. At least that's an interesting change compared to most books.
There's something missing from the short stories stopping them from being compete. I can't quite describe it, but stories feel more like stories rather than short stories. They lack a completeness. They are good stories though, with some pretty good individual parts.
The female characters were great. Something was off about the male characters, they just felt like images compared to the well roundedness of the female characters. At least that's an interesting change compared to most books.
There's something missing from the short stories stopping them from being compete. I can't quite describe it, but stories feel more like stories rather than short stories. They lack a completeness. They are good stories though, with some pretty good individual parts.
February 27, 2018
This is a hilarious, poignant highly original collection of short stories. In these stories: a young woman is distracted from her beekeeping job by the arrival of a hunky distraction, a couple goes on a trip of a lifetime only to grow bored with the Northern Lights and an addict bonds with a prisoner while bludgeoning salmon. These stories are unlike anything I've read and stuck with me for ages after I finished the collection. LOVE THIS BOOK!
April 20, 2018
A fascinating collection that explores "endings" of many kinds: those that are messy, unfinished, satisfying, deliberate, unexpected, prolonged, necessary. Baker writes of difficult things with a light touch, and her characters' voices led me effortlessly through these 15 stories--sort of like wilderness guides directing my attention to some of nature's most impressive wonders, while also pointing out a surprising number of carcasses along the way...
April 28, 2018
Every single story was so enthralling! I instantly wanted to follow these people's lives - not because they're perfect - but because they're interesting. I don't know how this happened. I picked this book up at my local bookstore and flipped open the first page. My expectations were incredibly low, yet it instantly became a must buy. This has to be in my top 5. Lol, it's the first short story collection I've ever read.
June 30, 2018
I am not entirely sure what I just read, but Baker has some great prose! I would be drawn into each short story quickly, though not all of them felt quite finished. There was a lot of resolutions without much resolution, though given the theme of the book, perhaps that's not surprisingly. Not really my taste, but I admire Baker's talent, and if you're move into general literature, this is a great set of shorts!
June 26, 2017
3.5 stars.
I really enjoy Baker's writing, and appreciated her decidedly west coast settings. However, all the stories felt slightly incomplete to me. While I enjoy open endigs, these felt more like a premature end to the narrative.
I really enjoy Baker's writing, and appreciated her decidedly west coast settings. However, all the stories felt slightly incomplete to me. While I enjoy open endigs, these felt more like a premature end to the narrative.
February 27, 2018
I loved this book so much I finished it in one night! These stories are full of compassion, insight and beautiful imagery. Even though some of the subject matter is a bit dark, the book is filled with humour and a sense of hope. Can’t wait to read more from this author. Highly recommended!
March 26, 2018
I admired the sense of place present in all of these stories but a lot of them felt unfinished, more like situations than complete stories. I wasn't sure what to take from some of them and those were usually the ones where the language wasn't quite as strong as the others.
April 21, 2018
Enigmatic, evocative little stories about family, death, work, nature, addiction. She seldom foregrounds or even names Indigeneity but it is very much present here. Can't wait to read more of her work.
June 11, 2018
While some of the stories were decent, the rest of them just described - 'a day in someone's life'. I kind of felt the stories were unfinished like some part of them was missing which was essential for bringing the entire story together in a cohesive manner.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews