Monday, June 11, 2007

All in Together Girls by Kate Sutherland


Completion Date: May 2007
Publication Year: 2007
Pages: 147
Purchased in 2007
Candid and truthful stories about women, young and old, grappling with generational wariness, creative recklessness, and illusive purpose celebrate all that is beautiful, wild and distinctive in contemporary women.

All In Together Girls, whose title is inspired by a jump rope rhyme, is a meeting place for girls as surely as the chant would have been on the playground. These stories relate the relentless search for identity, and the late night drive-through culture of bored teens whose "sleepover" alibis have left them with no place else to go. Hallmarked by entrances into, and thought-provoking points of exit from, moments of addiction, betrayal, misjudgement, and first kisses, they are defining portraits of girls and women during the storm and stress of self-discovery.
I thinking blogging is making really big movements to change the industry for new authors, or even authors that are established. Blog readers learn about new books that they might never of heard of and authors get the chance to come across as regular people to blog readers. It's a good system, so I will never understand why some authors are against it so much.

Kate, is a fellow blogger and fellow Canadian, so when I heard that she had a new book of short stories coming out, I added it to my wish list. I will been very honest, I really do not like short story collections. I much prefer a novel over anything, or a non-fiction book, but there are exceptions to every rule. All in Together Girls is one of those exceptions. This book of short stories is about women, and I believe that she captures the characters in her stories very well. I liked all the stories, they were short glimpses into lives that really captured the moment.

The problem is that I read this book a while ago, and I am really slow in reviewing it! To combat this I have started taking notes, but I had not started that when I read this collection, so I forget which stories were my favourite. These stories look at addiction, drugs are a very prevalent problem in our society. In one of the stories, you could also almost say that one of the young men is addicted to his girlfriend, which causes troubles for him in the end. There is also a rather captivating story about peer pressure in here. Friendships are covered, romance is covered, and all the problems that come with both.

Overall, a very good collection. I feel compelled to reread this book so I can remember the titles of my favourite stories. This review might be updated later on! Oh, and does it not have a great cover! I really like the cover.

Just a note, this book is out in Canada now, but it will not be released in the US or the UK until August. Keep your eyes open for it, I think several people that read my blog would enjoy it.

2 comments:

  1. It sounds pretty interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think some writers shy away from blogging because it's hard enough to find time to write. There's no time left over to blog. And blogging can be too much fun.

    ReplyDelete

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