Tenth of December in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

May 16, 2013 Jessica rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle, book-club, short-stories

I heard such good things and really wanted to like this collection of short stories, but a lot of it fell short for me. The writing is beautifully sparse, the characters are interesting, the premises are clever, but I felt like Saunders was holding me at arm's length the whole time, more showing me his prose than getting me invested in what should have been absolutely heartbreaking stories.

The first story, "Victory Lap," set me up to expect a lot from this book - it opens with a young girl refle I heard such good things and really wanted to like this collection of short stories, but a lot of it fell short for me. The writing is beautifully sparse, the characters are interesting, the premises are clever, but I felt like Saunders was holding me at arm's length the whole time, more showing me his prose than getting me invested in what should have been absolutely heartbreaking stories.

The first story, "Victory Lap," set me up to expect a lot from this book - it opens with a young girl reflecting on her charmed life as she practices her ballet positions at home, then takes a sinister turn when she opens the door to a strange man. We see the remainder of the story through the eyes of her neighbor, an awkward, unpopular boy whose controlling parents punish him for the slightest missteps. He struggles, paralyzed, counting off the house rules he would break to run outside and save his neighbor as he witnesses her being dragged through her yard to a van.

However, most of the remaining stories didn't carry as much of an emotional punch, though the general theme persists of messed-up/downtrodden/sad-sack people having to make decisions that could have major impacts on others. Sometimes they do the right thing; sometimes they do nothing; other times it isn't even clear whether it would make a difference or if there is a right thing to do.

The stories vary wildly in length, and as a rule the longer the story, the more impact it has. Several of the shortest stories felt throwaway, while the longest (nearly a quarter of the book!), "The Semplica Girl Diaries," is undoubtedly the most powerful in the collection, about a father who knows his family is poor but wants so desperately for his children to feel equal to their much wealthier peers. Another lengthy story, the titular "Tenth of December," ends the collection on another strong note as a dying man tries to kill himself through exposure, but is thwarted when a young boy encounters him, assumes the man needs saving, and in trying to help him ends up falling into a frozen lake and needing a rescuer himself.

Saunders is a really clever writer and there is a lot to like in these stories, but I feel like he has the capability to totally devastate the reader and doesn't actually pull that off very consistently in this collection. I'm probably being too harsh in giving it three stars but I really feel like this book should have wrecked me and instead it left me thinking more about the cleverness of the author than the actual situations and characters he was writing about. ...more

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Sep 19, 2013 Monica rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, 2014

Devastating and hilarious and dark and perfect. Now I need to go and read everything George Saunders has ever written.

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Apr 16, 2013 mehg-hen rated it really liked it

Shelves: existentialcrisis

A bunch of short stories, some with insane casual violence and suspense. The first story was so funny and then scary and awful I felt like I wanted to chew on the book and bend it in half and punch it. You really don't know which way he is going to go. I mean generally he feels like he's telling you jokes and you look down and he's about to fillet a toddler but maybe he won't. He finishes on a very moving story with a lot of death and tenderness and violence in it. You think you can casually sta ...more

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Feb 15, 2014 Mary rated it really liked it

I don't know how Saunders can write from so many differing voices. Most disturbing to me was the concept of immigrants strung up on wire to decorate suburban yards.......if that image doesn't haunt you..... ...more

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