![]() You just want to shout at the author, “Can’t you just tell the story without fritzing around so much?” Sometimes, Saunders manages to ultimately succeed even when he is doing a lot of fritzing around, such as in the dystopian “Escape from Spiderhead.” One thing I must give him credit for is his imagination. Another story that passes this test is “Victory Lap.” But often, as in “The Semplica Girl Diaries” and at least half of the other stories in this volume, there is an artificiality that is just annoying. At his best, such as in the title story, he weaves together events in a way that end up telling us a lot about human nature, the human spirit, and ultimately ourselves, since if fiction doesn’t have some effect on the reader, even in a totally vicarious way, I think it fails. First, can anyone live up to the ridiculous level of praise from the blurbs on the cover of this trade paperback edition? That come from everywhere, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Khaled Hosseini? Is Saunders that good a writer? I’m forced to say “no.” Not that he isn’t always interesting. ![]() ![]() I have mixed reactions to Saunders’ writing. ![]()
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