Review: Souvenir and three more not-quite-straightforward tales
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 8, 2013
I enjoyed these stories. In my opinion, they were written and put together well. All the stories were thought out nicely, and each was cohesive and left nothing to question. Of all the stories, I liked "Little Sister," the most. I thought it was a particularly interesting idea.I did have have two "issues" with the stories, although these are nit-picky and should be taken as my opinion, not an accurate assessment of the works. For me, the endings were a bit predictable. I can't, however, say this will be the case for everyone. I tend to enjoy dark and speculative fiction as well as the horror and science fiction genres, but for those not usually fans of the the more "extreme" contained within those categories, I believe you may be surprised by the endings and enjoy the stories quite a bit. Also, I thought the dialogue in the female voice(s) was a bit off; I am NOT someone who believes that an author shouldn't write from the perspective of the opposite gender, in fact, many authors do this very successfully. I wouldn't say that Daniel Kelley didn't pull it off, but I couldn't help but see the influences of a man's take on a woman, and possibly a bit of stereotypical views, on the dialogue. The male voice(s) was excellent!All that being said, I did enjoy the collection of stories and thought they were well-done.