River of Names

[Maria]

This is the first story in the book. I'm not sure what I thought of it. It sort of makes you wonder who in your life has a bad past or something that they are afraid to tell you. I also briefly looked up the author online and found that she really did have that family and childhood.

Here is a quote from her: "It's an interesting family. Pretty American. Pretty much normal America as far as I can tell. Except that we tell the story, most people don't. It used to be I'd call home and one of the lines that my mother would laugh about would be "Who's in jail?" And she'd laugh and say, "Now why do you ask that?" and then she would tell me who was in jail. But she hated that I would ask it."

[Jessica (thebluestocking)]

I thought the story was a bit repugnant. Was it shocking for the sake of shocking? Maybe I missed the lesson. Anyway, the story was just unpleasant for me. I can enjoy a sad story, but, as I said, this was just unpleasant in a way that I know I'll never be tempted to read it again.

In an Amazon review, someone mentioned that this story is not on of the author's best. Maybe I'll try another one of hers before dismissing her completely.

[Maria]

I agree. I would never read this story again or even recommend it to someone to read. At least it was only 10 pages!