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Cheyenne Blue's Reviews > The Shell Collector
The Shell Collector
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A wonderful collection of longish short stories. The loose theme that weaves this collection together is water, the sea, love of nature, and finding your place in life, even if it means severing ties with those you love.
Standouts for me were "For a Long Time This Was Griselda's Story" (best title ever!) about two sisters: one runs away with the metal eater from a carnival, the other stays at home. Both found their happiness and made peace with their decision, but the stay-at-home sister feels the need to justify her life, while Griselda flies free.
"Mkondo" was my favorite, about an American working in Tanzania who falls in love with a local girl. He has to learn to run so he can catch her as she runs free through the forest, and when he does, they marry and return to Ohio. A beautiful story about love, and taking that love for granted, and then ultimately, setting it free. The descriptions of running and the freedom are beautiful.
I also loved "A Tangle by the Rapid River", so subtle, so separate their lives.
The only story I wasn't too taken with was July Fourth, a tongue-in-cheek story about fishing.
I could rave about all the stories in this collection (apart from July Fourth). Truly stunning.
Standouts for me were "For a Long Time This Was Griselda's Story" (best title ever!) about two sisters: one runs away with the metal eater from a carnival, the other stays at home. Both found their happiness and made peace with their decision, but the stay-at-home sister feels the need to justify her life, while Griselda flies free.
"Mkondo" was my favorite, about an American working in Tanzania who falls in love with a local girl. He has to learn to run so he can catch her as she runs free through the forest, and when he does, they marry and return to Ohio. A beautiful story about love, and taking that love for granted, and then ultimately, setting it free. The descriptions of running and the freedom are beautiful.
I also loved "A Tangle by the Rapid River", so subtle, so separate their lives.
The only story I wasn't too taken with was July Fourth, a tongue-in-cheek story about fishing.
I could rave about all the stories in this collection (apart from July Fourth). Truly stunning.
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Reading Progress
April 28, 2014
– Shelved
April 28, 2014
– Shelved as:
to-read
July 3, 2014
–
Started Reading
July 5, 2014
– Shelved as:
literary-fiction
July 5, 2014
– Shelved as:
short-stories
July 5, 2014
–
Finished Reading
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Judy
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rated it 5 stars
Jul 07, 2014 03:04AM
Mkondo was my absolute favourite too, but I can't see where it is in my review. I think Goodreads must have thought my raving was too much and has deleted it.
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I didn't see your comment on Mkondo. I doubt GR would have deleted it... maybe you did a "me" and accidentally hit send before you were ready?
Quite possibly did something like that. Operator error I think it is called
