Thursday, July 12, 2018

Five Stars for A Perfect Universe by Scott O'Connor


Amazing.  I read this because it was on a list of books for a reading challenge.  I'd never heard of the author, but from the first few pages I was hooked.  The stories just blew me away.  I'm not even sure why they were so good, but the writing pulled me in and didn't let go.  The emotions were powerful, the characters compelling, the subject matter unusual.  Many of them took some strange small thing and made it central in such a beautiful way that I just kept thinking, "I wish I'd written this."  The settings and microcultures were real.  Everything…just a masterpiece. 

None of the stories wrapped us as much as I like.  They all left me hanging, hungering for more, wanting these characters to find more peace, more definite solutions, more answers.  Yet despite my preference for conclusions that are…well…conclusive…I loved these.  There was always just enough…just a bit of hope or a bit of closure.  Yet they kept me thinking about them afterward. 

I enjoyed the common thread that wove through most of the stories—a movie that was important in different ways to different people.  However, it did seem strange that this common thread was missing in only a couple of stories.  However, maybe I just missed it because I wasn't watching for it in the beginning.  I'll have to read the whole collection again.  And for the first time in a long while, I look forward to re-reading a book.

Five stars, no question--and I do not give five stars lightly.  In fact, I just looked back and for the last 50 novels or short story collections I've read, this is only the second one I've given 5 stars.

I will absolutely read more by Scott O'Connor

Warning:  a bit more profanity than I like, but not excessive.  And it's not exactly a light and happy read. 

Check it out from your local library or buy on Amazon:  A Perfect Universe; Ten Stories

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