Review: One of those perfect short stories
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 12 31, 2011
First of all, this is not a short story collection, it is a single short story by Lydia Peelle, a sample from an anthology.  If this one story is any indication, then I want to get the entire anthology because Peelle is an artful short story writer.In This is Not a Love Story, she follows the story of a young woman, right out of college and full of pretensions and dreams, beguiled by the South, through a summer that challenges her illusions and tests those dreams.  Although it is a short read, the author draws her characters fully, and you feel that you understand them very well in their struggle to cope with their relationship and their uncertain directions in life.  I found it ironic that the one thing the woman wanted so badly to excel in, her lover could do better than she without even trying hard, and yet, he didn't care enough to try, nor see what this did to her soul.