What do you think?
Rate this book
Becoming Someone
An anthology of short stories on the theme of identity and self-discovery:
What shapes the way we see ourselves?
An administrator is forced into early retirement; a busy doctor needs a break. A girl discovers her sexuality; an older man explores a new direction for his. An estate agent seeks adventure beyond marriage; a photojournalist retreats from an overwhelming world. A woman reduces her carbon footprint; a woman embarks on a transatlantic affair. A widow refuses to let her past trauma become public property; another marks her husband’s passing in style.
Thought-provoking, playful and poignant, these 42 short stories address identity from different angles, examining the characters’ sense of self at various points in their lives. What does it mean to be a partner, parent, child, sibling, friend? How important is work, culture, race, religion, nationality, class? Does our body, sexuality, gender or age determine who we are?
Is identity a given or can we choose the someone we become?
What shapes the way we see ourselves?
An administrator is forced into early retirement; a busy doctor needs a break. A girl discovers her sexuality; an older man explores a new direction for his. An estate agent seeks adventure beyond marriage; a photojournalist retreats from an overwhelming world. A woman reduces her carbon footprint; a woman embarks on a transatlantic affair. A widow refuses to let her past trauma become public property; another marks her husband’s passing in style.
Thought-provoking, playful and poignant, these 42 short stories address identity from different angles, examining the characters’ sense of self at various points in their lives. What does it mean to be a partner, parent, child, sibling, friend? How important is work, culture, race, religion, nationality, class? Does our body, sexuality, gender or age determine who we are?
Is identity a given or can we choose the someone we become?
277 pages, Paperback
Published November 23, 2018
19 people want to read
About the author
Anne Goodwin
10 books63 followersSHORT STORY E-BOOK FREE FOR NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIBERS
https://annegoodwin.co.uk/subscribe-t...
Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
Anne writes about the darkness that haunts her and is wary of artificial light. She makes stuff up to tell the truth about adversity, creating characters to care about and stories to make you think. She explores identity, mental health and social justice with compassion, humour and hope.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.
Website: annegoodwin.co.uk
https://annegoodwin.co.uk/subscribe-t...
Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
Anne writes about the darkness that haunts her and is wary of artificial light. She makes stuff up to tell the truth about adversity, creating characters to care about and stories to make you think. She explores identity, mental health and social justice with compassion, humour and hope.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.
Website: annegoodwin.co.uk
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 6, 2019
Book reviewed by Marcia on www.whisperingstories.com
I had the pleasure of reviewing Anne’s first book Sugar and Snails back in 2016 and loved every minute of it, so when I saw that Anne had written another book and the synopsis took my fancy, I was already hooked and eager to start reading.
Becoming Someone is a short story collection featuring forty-two different stories that all share a common theme, identity. Throughout the book I found myself thinking about the issues of identity more deeply than I have ever before. It is a special ability to crack such a great punch with so few words. Although the stories share a theme they are also unique too and very compelling and poignant.
I particularly liked the stories ‘Madonna and Child’, ‘A place of safety’, and ‘Reflecting Queenie’. These three stories really spoke to me.
Madonna and Child is the story of a teenage mum’s daily routine, her trying to be a grown-up when she is still a child, her feelings towards having no help from others and also wanting to prove she can go it alone. The story also skillfully lets you know she is in denial about her child too.
A Place of Safety tells the story of a young woman in a desperate situation, one she wants to get out of and with help arriving she needs to learn to trust people.
Reflecting Queenie begins in a courtroom with someone being found guilty. We are then taken back on a journey over the years and the situation with the narrators little sister as she tries to work out where it all went wrong for her sister and how she turned into the woman she did.
This is a book that speaks volumes and is well worth reading. Some of the stories are just a page long, others a couple of pages. It is a book that you can dip into now and again and one you don’t have to read in any particular order.
I had the pleasure of reviewing Anne’s first book Sugar and Snails back in 2016 and loved every minute of it, so when I saw that Anne had written another book and the synopsis took my fancy, I was already hooked and eager to start reading.
Becoming Someone is a short story collection featuring forty-two different stories that all share a common theme, identity. Throughout the book I found myself thinking about the issues of identity more deeply than I have ever before. It is a special ability to crack such a great punch with so few words. Although the stories share a theme they are also unique too and very compelling and poignant.
I particularly liked the stories ‘Madonna and Child’, ‘A place of safety’, and ‘Reflecting Queenie’. These three stories really spoke to me.
Madonna and Child is the story of a teenage mum’s daily routine, her trying to be a grown-up when she is still a child, her feelings towards having no help from others and also wanting to prove she can go it alone. The story also skillfully lets you know she is in denial about her child too.
A Place of Safety tells the story of a young woman in a desperate situation, one she wants to get out of and with help arriving she needs to learn to trust people.
Reflecting Queenie begins in a courtroom with someone being found guilty. We are then taken back on a journey over the years and the situation with the narrators little sister as she tries to work out where it all went wrong for her sister and how she turned into the woman she did.
This is a book that speaks volumes and is well worth reading. Some of the stories are just a page long, others a couple of pages. It is a book that you can dip into now and again and one you don’t have to read in any particular order.
July 15, 2019
Becoming Someone is a collection of 42 short stories, all with a theme of identity, by Anne Goodwin.
Anne is a masterful storyteller. Using an economy of words precise descriptions , she creates complex characters and situations that enable the reader to get into the mind of the protagonist. Her stories can be intriguing, confronting, thought-provoking or humorous. Some may haunt you with her incisive glimpse into life in the raw. Others may surprise with a twist in the tale.
The stories vary in length from just a few to several pages, but each provides an opportunity to reflect on the life or mind exposed. It is not necessary to embark on a one-sitting reading as each story engages in its unique way.
Having been a fan of Anne Goodwin’s short stories for many years, I had looked forward to this anthology since the first announcement. It did not disappoint. Each one is a gem. I have no hesitation in recommending it, or Anne’s other books, the novels Sugar and Snails and Underneath, to you.
Anne is a masterful storyteller. Using an economy of words precise descriptions , she creates complex characters and situations that enable the reader to get into the mind of the protagonist. Her stories can be intriguing, confronting, thought-provoking or humorous. Some may haunt you with her incisive glimpse into life in the raw. Others may surprise with a twist in the tale.
The stories vary in length from just a few to several pages, but each provides an opportunity to reflect on the life or mind exposed. It is not necessary to embark on a one-sitting reading as each story engages in its unique way.
Having been a fan of Anne Goodwin’s short stories for many years, I had looked forward to this anthology since the first announcement. It did not disappoint. Each one is a gem. I have no hesitation in recommending it, or Anne’s other books, the novels Sugar and Snails and Underneath, to you.
December 31, 2019
I was lucky enough to hear Anne read extracts from the short story book at a DMU Leicester literature event. I bought the book there.
There were many stories here to which I related but all were worth a read. This book teaches us about where we belong. Particularly, Anne has a way of adding a twist to the tale that keeps the reader on their toes and there's a story for everyone, at each stage of life.
Some stories made me giggle others made me contemplate the bigger picture. "Fat Footprints" was one of my many favourites. These stories help us connect and engage with everyday occurrences in an exciting way, in my opinion. There are a few tales that are very different from what I expected.
Shaping how we see ourselves, this book offers a story for most readers and helps question pigeon-holing. Basically, its a celebration of all situations.
There were many stories here to which I related but all were worth a read. This book teaches us about where we belong. Particularly, Anne has a way of adding a twist to the tale that keeps the reader on their toes and there's a story for everyone, at each stage of life.
Some stories made me giggle others made me contemplate the bigger picture. "Fat Footprints" was one of my many favourites. These stories help us connect and engage with everyday occurrences in an exciting way, in my opinion. There are a few tales that are very different from what I expected.
Shaping how we see ourselves, this book offers a story for most readers and helps question pigeon-holing. Basically, its a celebration of all situations.
April 28, 2021
By Annabel Herbert
Becoming Someone – Anne Goodwin
4 out of 5 Stars.
Anne Goodwin is a masterful storyteller who explores the likes of identity, mental health, and social issues within her fiction. Becoming Someone (2018) is Goodwin’s third release, after Sugar and Snails (2015), shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize, and Underneath (2017). Throughout the collection of forty-two short stories, Becoming Someone addresses identity and self-discovery from different perspectives whilst exploring the question: “is identity a given, or can we choose the someone we become?”
Goodwin takes her readers on a journey throughout Becoming Someone, and as
we travel from the Caribbean, where the “waves frothed like meringue above the reef” to the record counter at Woolworth’s, we are greeted by narrators of all races, sexualities, nationalities, and classes. However, it is easy to get caught up on the surface, and beneath most if not all of these poignant short stories, there is a much darker undertone. For instance, Madonna and Child was a gripping but rather difficult read, a tale about a teenage mother who’s grapple with mental health comes between her and her child. Flexible Rostering was also admirable, a story that skilfully enforces stereotypes and then transgresses them.
One of Goodwin’s successes in Becoming Someone is her attentive eye for human motivations and behaviours. As the characters slowly unfold and lead us through their own stories, their unique rhythms, vocabularies, and distinctive voice prints are so raw, which makes them at times feel all too real and relatable. As a result of this, there were moments where as a reader, I felt an unsettling voyeuristic sense as though I was watching over their most private and personal moments. Moreover, even though Becoming Someone can so quickly jump from one continent of the world to another, it is well written in that Goodwin utilises authentic jargon and language, which makes settling in easy and the stories believable.
On the other hand, there are also a handful of stories in the collection such as Heir to the Throne and After Icarus which stayed with me long after I finished reading Becoming Someone due to their eccentric and defamiliarizing nature. Within these stories, Goodwin marries the real world with fantastical situations, twisting cliches and making the most unusual circumstances seem every day. I felt that these achieved Goodwin’s aim in driving home social issues surrounding identity such as gender and mental health, as they were simultaneously captivating and thought-provoking.
However, despite my appreciation for the research that has gone into the writing of Becoming Someone and Goodwin’s ability to hook her readers in from the first line,
I would rate Becoming Someone four out of five stars. This is because I often found myself struggling with the balance of the stories, and the fact that some were more enjoyable than others. It was very easy to become absorbed into some of the stories on the shorter side and wish that they were longer, whereas, with some of the longer stories, I found that I was struggling to stay focused. Although, overall, I believe that Goodwin really makes use of the form of short stories to push the boundaries of identity, and successfully dig deep into what it simply means to ‘be’.
Becoming Someone – Anne Goodwin
4 out of 5 Stars.
Anne Goodwin is a masterful storyteller who explores the likes of identity, mental health, and social issues within her fiction. Becoming Someone (2018) is Goodwin’s third release, after Sugar and Snails (2015), shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize, and Underneath (2017). Throughout the collection of forty-two short stories, Becoming Someone addresses identity and self-discovery from different perspectives whilst exploring the question: “is identity a given, or can we choose the someone we become?”
Goodwin takes her readers on a journey throughout Becoming Someone, and as
we travel from the Caribbean, where the “waves frothed like meringue above the reef” to the record counter at Woolworth’s, we are greeted by narrators of all races, sexualities, nationalities, and classes. However, it is easy to get caught up on the surface, and beneath most if not all of these poignant short stories, there is a much darker undertone. For instance, Madonna and Child was a gripping but rather difficult read, a tale about a teenage mother who’s grapple with mental health comes between her and her child. Flexible Rostering was also admirable, a story that skilfully enforces stereotypes and then transgresses them.
One of Goodwin’s successes in Becoming Someone is her attentive eye for human motivations and behaviours. As the characters slowly unfold and lead us through their own stories, their unique rhythms, vocabularies, and distinctive voice prints are so raw, which makes them at times feel all too real and relatable. As a result of this, there were moments where as a reader, I felt an unsettling voyeuristic sense as though I was watching over their most private and personal moments. Moreover, even though Becoming Someone can so quickly jump from one continent of the world to another, it is well written in that Goodwin utilises authentic jargon and language, which makes settling in easy and the stories believable.
On the other hand, there are also a handful of stories in the collection such as Heir to the Throne and After Icarus which stayed with me long after I finished reading Becoming Someone due to their eccentric and defamiliarizing nature. Within these stories, Goodwin marries the real world with fantastical situations, twisting cliches and making the most unusual circumstances seem every day. I felt that these achieved Goodwin’s aim in driving home social issues surrounding identity such as gender and mental health, as they were simultaneously captivating and thought-provoking.
However, despite my appreciation for the research that has gone into the writing of Becoming Someone and Goodwin’s ability to hook her readers in from the first line,
I would rate Becoming Someone four out of five stars. This is because I often found myself struggling with the balance of the stories, and the fact that some were more enjoyable than others. It was very easy to become absorbed into some of the stories on the shorter side and wish that they were longer, whereas, with some of the longer stories, I found that I was struggling to stay focused. Although, overall, I believe that Goodwin really makes use of the form of short stories to push the boundaries of identity, and successfully dig deep into what it simply means to ‘be’.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 28, 2018
*I received an ARC from the author. All opinions are my own. This review was originally posted on RachelPoli.com.
Book Cover
I absolutely love the cover. The colors are so pretty together, the font of the title is simple but makes itself known, and the birds have a sense of symbolism to them. This cover was well done.
First Thoughts
I enjoy short story collections. I love seeing different perspectives from different characters and this was no different. I’ve enjoyed Anne Goodwin’s work in the past and didn’t want to pass up this opportunity to read her latest.
Plot
The plots vary from story to story and they’re very different from one another. There are a few that have similar themes, but each story is unique from the one before it and they were all interesting backgrounds.
Characters
As the title and summary suggests, each of these stories showcase the characters “becoming someone.” Everyone goes through their own struggles and battles and we all have good times and bad times. The characters in these stories had their own troubles to deal with and life kept moving on for them. Some were easier to get through than others, but the characters were becoming their own within their short tales.
Writing Style
This is a collection of 42 short stories and no two are the same. The writing style for each differed as well, depending on the character. The POV varied and there was even one story where the narrator spoke in first person and wouldn’t give their name. It kept the book interesting and made me wonder what sort of story and character would await me on the next page. Overall, they were all well written.
Overall
This book is well written and is a good length at nearly 300 pages. There are definitely some stories that I enjoyed more than others, but they were all an experience nonetheless.
Favorite Quote:
“Loitering with a raspberry milk-shake in yet another coffee-bar, she was afforded multiple glimpses of men with flowing golden curls, but none adorning the head of her prince charming.” -Anne Goodwin, Becoming Someone
Book Cover
I absolutely love the cover. The colors are so pretty together, the font of the title is simple but makes itself known, and the birds have a sense of symbolism to them. This cover was well done.
First Thoughts
I enjoy short story collections. I love seeing different perspectives from different characters and this was no different. I’ve enjoyed Anne Goodwin’s work in the past and didn’t want to pass up this opportunity to read her latest.
Plot
The plots vary from story to story and they’re very different from one another. There are a few that have similar themes, but each story is unique from the one before it and they were all interesting backgrounds.
Characters
As the title and summary suggests, each of these stories showcase the characters “becoming someone.” Everyone goes through their own struggles and battles and we all have good times and bad times. The characters in these stories had their own troubles to deal with and life kept moving on for them. Some were easier to get through than others, but the characters were becoming their own within their short tales.
Writing Style
This is a collection of 42 short stories and no two are the same. The writing style for each differed as well, depending on the character. The POV varied and there was even one story where the narrator spoke in first person and wouldn’t give their name. It kept the book interesting and made me wonder what sort of story and character would await me on the next page. Overall, they were all well written.
Overall
This book is well written and is a good length at nearly 300 pages. There are definitely some stories that I enjoyed more than others, but they were all an experience nonetheless.
Favorite Quote:
“Loitering with a raspberry milk-shake in yet another coffee-bar, she was afforded multiple glimpses of men with flowing golden curls, but none adorning the head of her prince charming.” -Anne Goodwin, Becoming Someone
January 25, 2020
An eye-opening read. This book of a collection of over 40 short stories, which was unlike most books I am used to reading. I don't know how the author did it, but the book drew my mind and attention to the character's identity. Not in a ‘’like -or-don’t -like’’ manner but rather in an analytical sort of way. Each story is different and presents a diverse group of personalities. The stories are about real people with real problems who caught the attention of a writer, bringing their life and struggles into the forefront for the reader to ponder. I would gladly recommend this book.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
August 29, 2019
Anne Goodwin is a masterful short-story writer, and this collection is packed with a variety of stories that demonstrate her prowess. I particularly like how she can get me, as a reader, to slip into the skin of unlikely characters and experience perspectives different from how I would view a subject. I think anyone who loves short stories needs this book in their collection and I think any developing writer should use her book as a guide to mastering the short form.
July 10, 2021
I found each story in this collection to be quite engaging. Even the shortest stories of 1-2 pages were perfect little gems. Looking forward to reading more from this author.
February 11, 2020
Some Good, Some Not So Enjoyable--But Lots of Options
I read some place that long-form fiction is about characters, and short stories are about themes relevant to the human condition. This author has put 42 of her short stories that could all be said to be on the same theme, stated in the title, in one collection. I like the fact that the author organized these stories logically, as if imagining someone in the dark figuring out that they could not go back or forward so had to choose a new path to get to the light. In fact, those five concepts actually are section headings. Some stories are disturbing, like the shocking first one of the book, “Madonna and Child.” They range in length, from drabbles to several pages. I'll admit that I was put off by the profanity in some stories, as I just do not think it has a place in fiction. All in all, I found myself slightly disappointed by this collection as I did not feel like some were true to good short story form.
I received a free copy of this book, but that did not affect my review.
My book blog: https://www.readingfanaticreviews.com
I read some place that long-form fiction is about characters, and short stories are about themes relevant to the human condition. This author has put 42 of her short stories that could all be said to be on the same theme, stated in the title, in one collection. I like the fact that the author organized these stories logically, as if imagining someone in the dark figuring out that they could not go back or forward so had to choose a new path to get to the light. In fact, those five concepts actually are section headings. Some stories are disturbing, like the shocking first one of the book, “Madonna and Child.” They range in length, from drabbles to several pages. I'll admit that I was put off by the profanity in some stories, as I just do not think it has a place in fiction. All in all, I found myself slightly disappointed by this collection as I did not feel like some were true to good short story form.
I received a free copy of this book, but that did not affect my review.
My book blog: https://www.readingfanaticreviews.com
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews