Desire Island Book

Overall: 3 stars

The Bees: 4 stars
Cleopatra Brimstone: 4 stars
The Man on the Ceiling: 3 stars. The writing of this piece is intentionally obscure, and it can be kind of annoying… but overall, a beautifully written story with a deeper meaning lurking beneath the heavy-handed writing.
The Great God Pan: 1 star. I have no idea what's going on here, and the characters are SO annoying. I couldn't finish it.
The Voice of the Beach: 1.5 stars. I managed to finish this one, but it was still pretty horrible. The story decides to be mysterious, but instead of creating mystery with literary skill, it just doesn't explain what's going on. Dear Authors: doing this to your audience is dreadful, and means that you are a lazy writer, not 'mysterious'. Although this aspect of the story makes everything really annoying, what I hated most were the CONSTANT and OVERBEARING descriptions of the main character being dizzy. The main character gets sunstroke, and on every single page there is a long-winded, heavy, and 'poetic' description of the main character feeling dizzy and sick. I have absolutely no idea why this was so constant… did any editor ever have a look at this before printing it? Despite this short story's enormous drawbacks, I was still creeped out by the premise. This had the potential to be something really great.
Body: 1 star. This short story was awful. Yet again, the author uses the device where he doesn't tell you anything to create mystery. Instead it just left me confused and uninterested. Here, let's look at an excerpt that shows you how completely obtuse this story is.
"Every shoe was once a woman," he says. "A shoe is a woman in a new body. There is for your purpose, no distinction."
"Welt," he whispers. "Box."
Dear reader of this review, don't think that I'm being ridiculous and pulling something totally out of context. There is no context, and after reading the entire story, this quote still doesn't make a lick of sense. 'Body' is a convoluted mess of a short story.
Louise's Ghost: 4.5 stars. I read this short story in another collection, and I enjoyed it just as much when I read it that. An original premise, and endearing, quirky characters. I got even more out of this story the 2nd time through. The only fault in this story was that I sometimes feel as if the author was trying too hard to make her characters seem quirky and unique. Let's look at a quote.
Louise asks the ghost, but he doesn't say anything. Maybe he can't remember what it was like to be alive. Maybe he's forgotten the language. He just lies on the bedroom floor, flat on his back, legs open, looking up at her like she's something special. Or maybe he's thinking of England.
That completely random reference to England completely threw me out of how immersed I was in this story. It doesn't make sense in the context, and didn't really make sense. Examples similar to this are scattered throughout, where a character says something so random that it completely tosses the reader out of the story.
The Sadness of Detail: 5 Stars An amazing premise and plot made perfect by skillful writing. The author plays with your emotions while keeping things tense and even a little frightening. The ending is ominous and miraculous, and left me thinking about a fascinating concept introduced in the story.
Leda: 4.5 Stars A creative and surprisingly deep "horror" story. It's so weird that I'm not actually sure how to classify it, but it's interesting while also exploring the tenuous relationship between a husband and wife.
In Praise of Folly: 3.5 Stars A genuinely creepy and slightly quirky story. The story doesn't have a unique premise, (I figured out where it was going pretty easily) but the suspense and feeling of discomfort that the author creates is masterful.
Plot Twist: 4 Stars An unoriginal premise flipped upside down by, you guessed it, a truly shocking plot twist. The characters are entertaining and interesting, but the plot twist really takes this one to greatness. I read the ending twice in a row.
The Two Sams: 1.5 Stars A heartbreaking concept that ultimately fails because of confusing writing. I managed to get through it, but I wasn't actually aware of what was going on. The story seems to be skipping around chronologically, but I wasn't sure, mostly because the skipping was constant and not clearly delineated by physical organization (ex. A new paragraph). Also, the author keep making references to things, and then failed to explain these weird references (giraffes were repeatedly mentioned in a context that didn't make sense). Just skip this one.
Unearthed: 4.5 stars. Sad, soft, and slow. The story artfully builds to a vicious hardball of an ending that hits you straight in the gut.
Gardener of Heart: 2.5 stars. I read through the whole thing because I enjoyed the writing, but honestly, I didn't know what was happening. I think some weird revelation happened at the end, but it flew right over my head.
Little Red's Tango: 0 stars. No idea what was happening here, I simply skipped it. The author tries to break this short story up into sections, which made it hard to stay focused on a jumpy, confusing narrative.
The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet: 5 perfect stars. STEPHEN KING IS A MASTER. This story gripped me from the beginning, and is perfectly paced. King uses the characters telling the story to inject frequent suspenseful breaks, and shows the fragility of the modern human. Perfect, perfect, perfect.
The Green Glass Sea: 3 stars. Not so much a horror story, but a simple, elegant reflection on the horrors of war. The author does a sly thing here (I don't want to spoil anything), and it's a unique look at a much discussed historical event.
The Kiss: 0 stars. Confusing and annoying, I quit this one pretty quickly.
Black Dust: 3 stars. The characters didn't interest me, but I loved the feeling of nostalgia emanating from this short tale. It made me feel like I was reading a really good, creepy children's story.
October in the Chair: 3.5 stars. A weird story within a story. 'October in the Chair' carries a genuine feeling of discomfort.
Missolonghi 1824: 1 star. I finished it, but I certainly didn't carry for the characters or plot. This one is a limp and boring story.
Insect Dreams: 0 stars. I almost got through this one, but I had to stop. The writing is vague, and confusing, and physically broken up into little paragraphs. I think the author was going for poetic beauty, but she completely failed. An overlong mess, and a horrible attempt at 'contemporary' fiction.
Overall, this collection contained some great stuff, but it also contained some horrible duds. There's a lot of 'contemporary' fiction that attempts to do something new by being vague and imprecise… this is horrible because it isn't skillful or poetic. It's easy to do, and the reader just leaves confused. This story collection is actually an excellent showcase of what an easy strategy 'vague' and 'confusing' is… any hack can do it.