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I heard Yu on the radio, and decided to check out some of his work. The science student lapsing to fiction is always hard to pass up (wish there were more lapsing the reverse direction, but that is definitely upstream if not in fact illegal, and "The Kite Runner" doesn't count).Anyways, my short review here is: Omni Magazine, wherefore art thou?Yu's extremely short stories are ideas teased out like cotton candy to occupy a larger space than they will fill inside you once you've devoured them. If...
Apart from the opening title story none of the protagonists in this collection of short stories have more than two dimensions, not that Moisture Man is particularly deep but at least he has a name. The protagonist in ‘Problems for Self-Study’, for example, is simply referred to as ‘A’ as in:1. TIME T EQUALS ZEROA is on a train traveling due west along the x-axis at a constant velocity of seventy kilometres per hour (70km/h). He stands at the rear of the train, looking back with some fondness at
I originally picked up this book at the library because I loved the cover. This book has a really great cover. This book is as good as its cover. Great clever short stories. I finally just got a copy of my own.
I'm not entirely sure what I thought I was going to get, but this book is entirely not it. Much smaller than I was expecting, it then turned out to be a short story collection of very literary fiction playing with SF tropes. Playing with great abandon -- these are strongly SF, very reminiscent of some of Stansislaw Lem's work (I'm thinking One Human Minute, and the book of reviews of non-existent books). Some of the stories are tight, finely crafted. Some of the others are more prose poetry. And...
The first story is the only one having to do with superheroes, which I think I might have read before but forgot. First story was pleasant enough, it took a dip thereafter, then got better and better.Style was reminiscent of Interior Chinatown, which I really enjoyed. Lots of Proper Descriptive Nouns instead of real names. Choppy prose. Obtuse metaphors.I dug it, like with most short story collections probably should have broken it up with other books in between.
_Third Class Superhero_ is a stellar debut collection of short stories from Charles Yu. Yu's style is really fresh and intelligent. Most of the stories read as hybrids texts: think short story crossed with tv script, math equation, commercial or brand ad, and prose poem. Sometimes, I felt, though, that the style overtook the story such as in "401(k)" and "The Man Who Became Himself." The highlights in this collection are "Third Class Superhero,"My Last Days As Me," "Realism," and "Autobiographic...
It is really hard for me to describe my feelings about this book. Yu writes well, and each of these short stories are heart-wrenching, sometimes funny, emotionally disturbing, and extremely honest. Many of them struck a cord in my heart, revealing the ordinariness of life and the way we often mask it, living superficially. So to borrow Frederick Barthelme's words from the back cover, "It's a delight to read someone who realizes that life in the world is not as simple as it is often made to seem....
I feel like I forgot to read the back and then in my vagueness failed to realise that this is short stories... Anyway, long story short I only like short stories when I know they are about to happen. I think maybe it was because the first story read like it was setting up an entire novel and I was expecting an entire novel that made me disappointed.But also, there are some really good stories in it.I think it's difficult to really say much about books of short stories because they are individual...
Third Class SuperheroProblems for Self StudyMy Last Days as Me32.05864991%These are the standout stories for me.The first a look at settling career-wise. when to do it, what it means. Using a superhero main character does that thing Magritte does in his art...makes you think about a normal thing differently because we're seeing it in surreal way now.The second story...The premise and execution are equally fantastic. Written as a series of mathematical word problems we learn - by reading between
Third Class Superhero is an anthology of short stories written by Charles Yu that experiments with forms and genre of the science fiction genre.For the most part, I really like most of these contributions. Third Class Superhero contains eleven short stories and most are written rather well. On the surface it seems like an eclectic collection of short stories, but a thin vein connects these stories – thematic-wise. These stories are surprisingly heart-breaking, hilarious, and smart.Like most anth...
I read Charles Yu's later short story collection, Sorry Please Thank You, before this one, which was probably the wrong order to read them in. I can't help but compare this short story collection to his other one, and his later work just seemed more complete, though that could also be because the stories in that collection were longer. Some of the stories in this book seem a bit incomplete, like there was a good idea that was being explored, only for the story to end before it went anywhere. I w...
So, the first story was great. But, when I started the second "chapter" I was surprised to see that the story changed...and then I realized that I was reading a short story collection, not a novel. Oops.I did not like the second story. Just skimmed it.When I found myself skimming the third story, I decided it was time to mark this DNF.I would have loved it if Yu had continued with the first story--about the superheroes. That could have been a really interesting novel, in and of itself.
