Review: An excellent set of stories.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 16, 2012
I picked this book up purely on the strength of the title and after reading the first two stories, I came back and had a quick flick through the reviews, because I hadn't bothered when I first got the book and I was interested as to whether other viewpoints reflected my own.This is an excellent series of short stories, all based around a single character at various stages of his life, in a variety of different situations.* * * SPOILERS IN THIS SECTION * * *I found the opening story, where J.T. meets the husband of one of his ex's to be easily the most entertaining short I have read in a while, and based upon the combination of this and the books' title, I was genuinely expecting more of the same.However, author Frank Mundo has created in J.T., a very complex and decidedly noble character, who has an innate sense of justice and righteousness that is too often lost to us lesser mortals.Instead of a cover-to-cover romp of chuckles, the character recounts stories of varying degrees of humour and darkness, as he trawls through everything from a sabotaged essay at the hands of his older siblings, to the suicide of a friend after a false rape accusation and falling from a window and being told by his older brother that they are now dead.* * * END OF SPOILERS * * *Every story carries a different moral dilemma and Mundo handles each of them expertly. I was delighted to find that other readers had enjoyed and rated this collection as highly as me, and indeed, this work is deserving of the high praise.Powerful writing is coupled with an outstanding level of editing and this combines to create some superb use of language. The observational "quirks" within the writing are carefully thought out and the reader finds that they are soon sharing the thoughts and emotions of the central character, as if they were present at the time.If I wanted to pick on something, it would possibly be that the stories do not run in chronological order, which may have allowed the reader to pick up on the subtle character changes as J.T. aged. Despite this, in its own right, this is a VERY good read.