Review: Not what I expected
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 5, 2011
Seventy-eight-year-old Harry Smith sits in McDonald's most days for a few hours alone, with no friends and no one to pay attention to him.  Harry has been alone for a long time, but it used to be he wanted to be like his brother, Andy.The narrator of the story tells how he met Andy and Harry back when they were young teenagers, and always in trouble in their neighborhood.  At first it was Andy who was the one in trouble because Harry just sat and watched and kept his distance, always being yelled at by their mother because he wasn't going to be half the man his brother was.  Little did she know that Andy was collecting debts for a loan shark and if they couldn't pay, he used such coercion methods as stabbing the person in the abdomen.  Harry got his chance to obtain some power one day when his and his brother's friend killed a cat.  Harry was able to take it and even enjoyed watching the torture and death of the poor animal.  This trio of friends continues to commit crimes because they feel powerful after doing atrocious things.What happens to them in the end is for the reader to find out.  I didn't expect this story to be as violent in tone as it was, and I don't like books or stories that involve the torture or killing of animals.  I nearly gave up on it, but I continued to the end, but this short story isn't my favorite of the ones I've read lately. I found it to be a bit boring in places, too.  I gave it three stars because I didn't really dislike it that much, but I didn't like it, either, so it was just okay according to my taste in reading.