3.5 starsViolent with grief. That's the phrase I kept coming back to while reading Amy Bloom's short stories. In "Rowing to Eden," a woman with breast cancer calls her nurse a "stupid bitch" because of her clumsiness with a needle. In "Hold Tight," Della deals with the death of her mother, and in the process she thinks about how her friends argue with their moms about stupid things like boys and clothes - Della wishes she could "stab them to death." A mother watches her son go through sex reassi...

Each of these short stories seemed to eventually focus on a love relationship, whether or not it was obvious, socially sanctioned, or even desired. Perhaps the author's previous work as a social worker and psychotherapist had broadened her awareness of the unusual types of relationships.These stories were generally not celebrations of love. In fact, there seemed to be an overall sense of melancholy resignation, with this attitude perceived in the characters, often before the reader knows why. Un...

This is the kind of collection that makes people hate short stories. Bogged down with all kind of typical, unspecific tragedy--a dead baby story, of course, because you couldn't possibly be a successful female American story writer without one of those in your bag, breast cancer story, TWO improbable and dishonest I-slept-with-my-stepmother stories (?), and a few more cancer/Parkinson's/someone died stories. What is frustrating about this isn't that these aren't worthy topics for fiction--they a...

Yes, these are very sad stories. But Amy Bloom seems to write about sadness in a revelatory way, rather than join-me-here-in-this-mucky-mess-of-desperation. The story "The Story" is so excellent, I was happy I read all the way through the collection to finally end on this sentence: "I have made the best and happiest ending that I can in this world, made it out of the flax and netting and leftover trim of someone else's life, I know, but made it to keep the innocent safe and the guilty punished,

Hold tight was the best.. Others ok.

I really like Amy Bloom's writing. I discovered her via The L Word, she was mentioned by Jenny in one of the episodes. I looked her site up and read some excerpts from her short stories and knew I wanted to read more of her work. Bloom has a comfortable, conversational way of telling a story. I'm not one for short stories, whether they're good or bad. Bad short stories because they're a waste of time, and good short stories - because you want them to be more than just a short story. This is how

This collection was a finalist for the national book critics circle award and the back jacket was full of lines of praise from the New Yorker and the New York Times, but I didn't connect with the stories. I felt like they were written with a lot of polish and there was a lot of cleverness in the stories, but it all felt pretty glib to me and I wasn't able to connect with any of the characters emotionally. They seemed empty to me, shiny but without substance. I don't know. I guess lots of other p...

Amy Bloom is a powerful writer, and these short stories take your breath away. Her writing is spare, so reminds me of Raymond Carver, but she's writing from a woman's eye and these stories make your heart ache. Fabulous if you like short stories. Not for someone looking for a light read.

I feel actors should read this book because I've never read stories with such clear, complete characterizations. And its not simply descriptive - from the very beginning it's as though the characters appear right before you; like really great actors have seeped themselves in their roles and made all the right choices. My only problem is the stories are SO devastating that it's difficult for me to go on to the next story.

I can understand why other reviewers seem to either love or hate Amy Bloom's collection of short stories. The characters face aberration and tragic life circumstances at every turn and in large doses this can be overwhelming for casual reading. Taken one at a time, these are little pearls with inner dialogs that open the reader to an appreciation of the human capacity for unconditional love. Go for it. You'll be forced to think about "what-would-you-do-in-the-same-situation" and that is always a...

A collection of terribly, terribly sad short stories. Puts death and angst in perspective. Made me want to line up every member of my family and hug each one of them, then watch them hug each other. At knife point, of course.

Amy Bloom. I have never read anything of hers before. I mean, I worked at a bookstore at the height of her Away's popularity, but I never did much more than crack the cover and read the book jacket. So why I chose this collection (A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You) of her short stories to start with, I'm not entirely sure. The first story is about a mother's love extending to her daughter as the girl becomes her son. I had just finished this when someone (at a gathering of J's family) aske...

I can't quite articulate how much I loved these stories, how much I admired the level of craft on display here. Characterizations are sharp, and descriptions are precise and concise. It is amazing. Consider this excerpt:The summer Jessie Spencer turned five, she played Capture the Flag every day with the big boys, the almost-six-year-olds who'd gone to kindergarten a year late. Jane never worried, even in passing, about Jesse's IQ or her eye-hand coordination or her social skills. Jesse and Jane...

Amy Bloom writes about love in such a perfect, poignant, shockingly honest way that it makes me fervently wish that she'd fall in love with me for awhile and then, maybe a few years later, write a short story about our affair. That'd be the greatest thing to ever happen to me, I think.

once i was answering phones at small business that did catalog sales, and someone called to make an order and said her name was amy bloom. and i said, not the famous writer amy bloom? and there was this long pause, and then she sort of chortled and said, well, yes, i guess it is.she stayed on the line and talked to me for five or ten minutes about writing. she was so lovely. if i hadn't already read all her stories, i'd have gone out and bought them on the strength of what she had to say about h...

I don't even know what I can say about this book to do it justice. Each story was so moving, some left me breathless, others like sharp talons were tearing at my heart.

There were only a couple of stories in this collection that I maybe wanted extended — not even to a full length novel though; just a few more pages. Other than that, not much resonated with me from this book; the stories, the writing, the characters were all meh for me. After having been graced with incredible collections such as “What it means when a man falls from the sky” and “Friday black,” this one sadly didn’t work for me as strongly.

I'm torn on the rating for this collection for several reasons. The first of which is that I randomly picked this book of my sister-in-law's bookshelf and started reading without checking the synopsis. I assumed that it was a novel, so I was disappointed when the characters completely changed in the second "chapter," and I just kept wondering when we'd return to them. Obviously we never did because this is a collection of short stories, not a novel.But this brings me to my main criticism, which

Maybe it was the timing, but this book of short stories just did not do it for me. Don't get me wrong, it was beautifully written, but it was also tragic in so many ways. I struggled getting through some of them because they were so painful. Rather than wanting to read the next one as soon as I finished one, I kept hoping that the one I was on was the last one. Again, very well-written, but sad to read.

these stories are beautiful. None of them are about conventional love in any sense of that term, and thus they are even more powerful -- the odd places in which people find love, and the unexpected strength of those connections. The opening story watches a woman at a hospital, while looking after her beloved daughter who's about to have a sex change opertation to finally become the man she's always felt she really is, unexpectedly fall in love with an endocrinologist who works in the same medica...